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Dozens of young Nepalese went into combat, some lured by Russia’s promise of work, others to fight for Ukraine, raising the prospect of the Nepalese embarking on a far-off war.
By Bhadra Sharma and Jeffrey Gettleman
Bhadra Sharma reported from Kathmandu, Nepal, and Jeffrey Gettleman from Dnipro, Ukraine.
Several months ago, Sandip Thapaliya, an unemployed laboratory technician, sent his sister to Kathmandu with exciting news.
“I joined the Russian army!” He said by phone from Moscow. It was up to him to find a decent job at home in Nepal, he says, so this was his most productive option. Soon, he would be sent to Ukraine.
Her younger sister, Shanta, couldn’t.
“Are you crazy? Have you been bitten by a rabid dog?” he shouted. “Don’t you know that thousands of people are dying there?”To them, like an insect.
He begged her to worry (after all, he had just signed up as a doctor) and promised to keep in touch.
He did this for a few weeks, splitting the contract he had signed for about 75,000 rubles a month (about $750); of himself in impeccable camouflage; and even videos showing him walking through a Russian army base.
But less than a month later, he left a brief voicemail: “They’re taking us into the jungle. I’ll call you when I get back. “
Then, silence.
His story, from the desperation of fleeing his home to the life of an indentured soldier thousands of miles away, is remarkably familiar in Nepal, where many young people have taken sides in the war in Ukraine, on both sides.
According to Nepalese government officials, documents shared with The New York Times and interviews with family members and a soldier serving in Ukraine, most of them are fighting for Russia.
But a smaller organization has joined the Foreign Legion on the Ukrainian side, according to Legion members. This raises the possibility that young people from a flawed Himalayan nation, with no interest in war, could face off against others in the trenches of Ukraine, an unsettling prospect that is causing fear in their country.
“If this scenario continues, Nepalese will kill others in the Russia-Ukraine war,” said Rajendra Bajgain, a member of the ruling coalition in Nepal’s parliament. “I feel guilty to see all of this in front of my eyes. It’s a crime.
Landlocked Nepal, with a developing population and emerging unemployment, is one of the poorest countries in Asia. It also has a long history of exporting young men to people’s wars.
More than two hundred years ago, the British recruited Nepalese Gurkha infantrymen to help them put down rebellions and take India. The Gurkhas continued to fight for the British in global wars, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The war in Ukraine has put Nepal in a difficult situation. It has tried to remain neutral, refusing to accept economic sanctions opposed to Moscow. But unlike India, Nepal has taken a stand at the United Nations opposed to Russia’s violent expansionism.
The Nepalese government is urging young people to stay away from war. Bajgain says the government tells the Russian military to prevent the recruitment of Nepalese citizens, but the government does not have “the courage” to do so.
Nepal’s struggle to respond has plunged the families involved into deep anguish. “I told my brother to run away,” Shanta said. But he stuck with it. “
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Sandip, 30, was looking for work. He worked as a technician in a Covid lab but was laid off when cases declined. At the same time, she falls in love and marries.
Last fall, when inflation soared in Nepal and tourism plummeted, he came up with a plan: He’d get a student visa to Russia, work there for a couple of years, and then on to Western Europe. In fact, I wanted to live in Spain.
His wife helped pay $8,000 to a company in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, which made the arrangements — flights, visa and enrollment in a Russian language school — and last October landed in Moscow. But things didn’t go as planned.
He had a tough job in a metal factory, then in a flower shop, then as a snowplow and his immigration permit was about to expire.
But in May, everything changed. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that foreigners who serve one year in the Russian army will get advantages of a fast track procedure to obtain full citizenship.
For Russia, it’s a way to fill its ranks after absorbing massive losses. For immigrants like Sandip, it’s probably impossible to resist the opportunity, although, in his sister’s words, “he’s thin, weak, and has never shown the slightest interest in military stuff. “
On the same day Putin signed the measure, Sandip signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry. This required him to engage in “activities aimed at maintaining or restoring peace abroad. “
Several other Nepalese and members of their family circle familiar with the program said the recruits received only brief training. The photographs show them in a gym somewhere in Russia, running with drones and driving Kalashnikovs as Russian trainers look on.
Young people from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and many other countries have joined the program, the Nepalese said. Less than a month later, they were sent to Ukraine.
(The Cuban government recently said it seeks to “neutralize” a human smuggling ring that sends Cubans to Russia to fight in Ukraine. )
At the time, a Nepalese soldier named Tamrakar, whose relatives had known him only since his first call for fear that Russia would deny him medical attention, was seriously wounded in Bakhmut, the site of the bloodiest fighting of the war. A missile hit his trench, breaking his hand and charring his legs. He was taken to a Moscow hospital where “nurses are spoon-feeding him,” said his father, a factory worker in Nepal’s southern plains.
His father said he knew little about geopolitics, but felt Russia was bullying Ukraine — anything he can relate to — coming from Nepal, a ribbon-length country wedged between two giants, India and China.
“I don’t know who Putin is or his intentions,” he said. “But it shattered our dream. “
Another Nepalese who joined the Russians said he respected Mr. Putin and was seeking to fight what he called “a Western monopoly. “
The soldier, who asked to be known only through his call sign, Rai, said he first tried to enlist in the British Army. When he failed, he enlisted in Moscow. The salary is higher than fighting for Ukrainians and, according to him, he said, “I love Putin. “
Youth advocates in Nepal cite widespread unemployment as the main explanation for the success of recruitment in Russia.
“Of the 500,000 young people who enter the workforce every year, only 80,000 or 100,000 are hired in Nepal,” said Binoj Basnyat, a retired Nepali general who now works as a researcher at Rangsit University in Thailand. Rest go?
In June, Sandip sent Bakhmut. Su sister, a pharmacist in Kathmandu, who was so worried that she tried to stay awake at night to avoid having nightmares.
After Shanta didn’t listen to him, he sent messages to his family, friends, Nepalese running in Russia, and Nepalese diplomats (maybe you can think of) asking for help.
She was obsessed with Ukrainian news and searched her phone for updates on Bakhmut, which the Russians captured in May after sacrificing wave after wave of men.
Shanta even addressed the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Interior, holding a plastic envelope containing documents and photographs, and not easy answers. It doesn’t. But by the end of August, their efforts paid off.
A Russian official sent a message to a relative: “Your brother was buried on July 14 at 12:50 p. m. at the Navo-Talisty cemetery in Ivanovo, Russia. I hope I have helped you. My deepest condolences. “
That’s it.
“I felt like my whole world was falling apart,” Shanta said.
Later, the Nepalese government showed her death, leaving Shanta desperate.
His family is Hindu and believes that the soul can only be freed from the frame by cremation. He needs to go to the Russian cemetery, three hundred kilometers from Moscow, and bring home his brother’s remains. But Nepalese officials in Moscow told him the Russian military would not allow it.
However, she is determined and says that her life now boils down to a purpose she may never have imagined a year ago: to give a piece of bone back to her brother, whom she enjoyed so much, so that his soul can pass on. through.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting from London.
Jeffrey Gettleman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent. He is the author of “Love, Africa,” a memoir. Learn more about Jeffrey Gettleman
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