Asia shares
world-wide shame

Early in May, Disanayake Mudiyanselage Suraweera appealed to the Sri Lankan government to bring back her husband, who was duped into fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war in February.

Suraweera and her husband, N.M. Ranil, live in Badalkubura village in Monaragala district, which is one of the poorest in the financial crisis-ridden island nation in the Indian Ocean.

Like Ranil, an estimated 800 men, including former members of the armed forces, were lured to fight on both sides of the Ukraine war.

The Sri Lankan parliament set up an inquiry to track them in May following national outrage after media reports confirmed the deaths of at least 16 Sri Lankans in the conflict.

Reports also suggested that several Sri Lankan mercenaries were detained in Ukraine on May 28.

Suraweera said Ranil was forced to take up the job to “support the schooling of our three children.”

The family was facing “severe financial challenges” following the worst economic crisis Sri Lanka witnessed two years ago.

The documents that Ranil, a retired soldier, signed were in Russian. “We did not understand what was in them,” Suraweera told UCA News on May 29.

The contract was to work in a Russian army camp, with no obligation to serve on the frontline.

“But we were deceived,” and he was “coerced into frontline combat,” Suraweera said.

In this photograph taken on June 4, 2024, Anil Madusanka, a hotel driver who had joined Russian forces, shows his wound during an interview with AFP at his residence in Colombo. Madusanka thought he would swap driving tourists for a promised job driving in Russia, but was handed an assault rifle instead and sent to the battlefront to face Ukrainian forces. He was wounded by shrapnel that tore into both his legs. From a hospital, he fled to the Sri Lankan embassy in Moscow, which arranged his repatriation last month. (Photo: AFP)

Trapped with promises

The couple paid an agent US$6,800 to secure the job in Russia. He promised a handsome salary and perks.

But during a phone call, Ranil told his wife that his life was in danger “because we've been deployed to the front line.”

If he refused, they would put him in a prison-like room and subject him to physical and mental abuse, he told her.

Suraweera said three retired army officers were involved in recruiting former soldiers from various districts, including Kurunegala and Kandy.

According to unofficial estimates, some 800 men from across the country, most of them former members of the Sri Lankan armed forces, have been trafficked.

Advertisements shared on social media promised an average monthly salary of US$2,100, more than ten times the average salary in Sri Lanka, said Gamini Waleboda, a lawmaker who leads an organization attempting to save these trafficked men.

Hundreds of members from Waleboda’s organization — Let's Save Sri Lankan Citizens — including relatives of trafficking victims, demonstrated in front of the Russian embassy on May 28, expressing concern over the safety of their people.

Like Ranil, most of them “have embarked on this journey by mortgaging their lands, houses, and vehicles. Their families are unsure about their whereabouts, as many have gone silent,” Waleboda said.

Each one paid around 1.8 to 2 million rupees (around US$6,500). Besides the salary, they were also offered land in St. Petersburg and Russian citizenship, a clear sign of human trafficking, he said.

“We urgently need to bring these individuals back, as soon as possible," Waleboda told UCA News.

People protest near the Russian embassy in Colombo on June 4, 2024, seeking the return of Sri Lankan ex-soldiers fighting for Russia and prisoners of war in Ukraine.  (Photo: AFP)

War veteran's involvement

Waleboda, who was invited by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to brief the country's National Security Council, said the Sri Lankans in Russia have not communicated with Sri Lankan or Russian authorities.

He said that the former military men in all probability “have been assigned to the Wagner Mercenary Group,” a Russian state-funded private military company.

“As soon as Sri Lankan ex-military personnel went to Russia, they were sent to the battlefield after a short training period," added Waleboda.

The government has received 288 complaints, and investigations are underway, State Minister of Défense Premitha Bandara Tennakoon told media at the end of May.

He also promised “stringent legal measures against traffickers.”

Investigators have arrested five individuals, including a retired major general and two other retired senior army men, who are suspected of being the “masterminds.”

The Chief of Defense Staff, General Shavendra Silva, felt it is for the nation to maintain “the honor and integrity” of its military that successfully defeated one of the world's most brutal terrorist organizations.

However, Sri Lankan military veterans, celebrated for fighting to end the three-decades-long civil war in 2009, are facing financial hardship after retirement. Their average monthly pension is only around US$170.

The ongoing economic crisis and their low pension “naturally forced them to engage in an activity they knew best,” said a family member of a retired army man.

Sri Lanka has thousands of retired Short Service Commissioned Officers who were recruited during the three-decade-long war.

These officers retire after completing eight years of service or at 50 years, whichever occurs first. That meant hundreds of physically fit army-trained men were looking for gainful employment after the economic crisis hit the nation.

Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Levan Dzhagaryan, left, addresses a joint press conference with Sri Lanka's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Tharaka Balasuriya in Colombo on May 30, 2024. (Photo: AFP)

States act ignorant

“Officially, Russia cannot be faulted as there seems to be no connection,” according to Waleboda. 

The Russian embassy in Colombo merely issued tourist visas to those who applied, he said.

The embassy posted on social media that it would offer “as much assistance as possible.”

But what rankles rights activists is the ignorance on the part of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was “unaware of their people’s departure,” they said.

In her complaint to the government, Anosha Herath from Pilimathalawa village said her husband, B. B. Herath, a former army officer, was “deployed to work in the forward defense zone of the Russian army without his consent.”

Her husband, who served for 22 years before he retired from the Commando Regiment of the Sri Lanka Army, was promised he would not be deployed for “military action."

Herath now wonders how such a large-scale trafficking operation could have happened without the government not knowing about it.

Following national outrage, the Ministry of Defense said it had established a unit to gather information regarding the trafficking of the retired Sri Lankan servicemen.

“The solution to this problem should be found through negotiations with the Russian government,” said Herath while adding that the Sri Lankan government should also punish the culprits and take robust measures so such crimes are not repeated.

Father Anton Sriyan, executive secretary of the Catholic National Commission for Migration, said economic compulsion had forced the retired soldiers to become “entangled in human trafficking.”

He called it “a distressing trend exacerbated by the nation's economic downturn.”

The Catholic body has told its units in all dioceses “to raise awareness about safe migration,” the priest told UCA News.