MAU: Rakesh and Brajesh Yadav used to paint houses for a living, earning barely enough for their families to get by, when they received what appeared to be an offer they couldn’t refuse.
The promised pay of Rs 2 lakh each a month for a job as a security guard in Russia would transform their lives, or so the duo thought.
Russia did change their lives, though not in the way the duo would have imagined.
Rakesh (29) of UP’s Azamgarh and Brajesh (30) from neighbouring Mau returned home in Sept last year, around eight months after they left home, bearing the wounds of a battle they were forced to fight and mentally scarred for life.
“After landing on Russian soil, we were immediately tested for physical fitness and then sent to undisclosed locations for 15 days of combat training with modern weapons. They later transported us in military trucks to fight against Ukrainian soldiers at various locations along the border,” Rakesh told TOI.
They spent several months in hospital not knowing when they could go back home when PM Narendra Modi’s intervention put them back on a flight to India.
While Rakesh and Brajesh are grateful to be alive and beside their families, the trauma of war and deception still haunts them. The three Indian agents who duped them into working for the Russian military pocketed most of their earnings while they were putting their lives in danger on the frontline of the Russia-Ukraine war.
“We reached Russia on Jan 17, 2024, and our agents Sumit and Dushyant, with the help of a Russian national, opened bank accounts in our names and wired Rs 7 lakh each. It seemed a good start until the agents took our bank details and debit cards,” said Rakesh, who was in a group of six men hailing from Azamgarh and Mau.
Later, some Russian soldiers disclosed that they had been “sold” by their agents to fight alongside the military.
“Initially, we were assigned tasks like loading arms and ammunition onto trucks, cleaning bunkers and cooking food. But once the Russians suffered heavy casualties on the battlefield, we were forced to pick up weapons. I was sent to fight at Sudzha, 10km from the Russia-Ukraine border,” Rakesh said.
He was wounded in a drone attack while engaged in a mission to rescue a Russian military commander. “I was taken to a Chechen-controlled hospital along with other wounded soldiers, including Vinod Yadav (Mau), Dhirendra Kumar, Arvind Kumar, Yogendra Yadav and Kanhaiya Yadav of Azamgarh.” Kanhaiya died of his wounds, while those who recovered were sent back to the war front. Rakesh, who remained in hospital, later contacted the embassy in Moscow and also got in touch with Brajesh. “I had previously worked in Malaysia and Dubai for four years, but this was a nightmare. I spent two months in hospital before being evacuated,” said Brajesh, a native of Lilhawa village in Mau.
In 2022, Rakesh, from Bhimsenpur village of Azamgarh, had spent 10 days in Vietnam to join a packaging company. On realising the job was that of a marble polisher with no guarantee of returning home soon, he decided to catch the first available flight back.
