Indians die fighting for Russia in Ukraine, leaving a trail of helplessness

At least two Indian men have been killed on the Ukrainian front lines, revealing the desperation caused by widespread joblessness back home.

New Delhi, India – On the night of February 20, Ashwin Mangukiya’s phone rang. It was a WhatsApp call from his son Hemil, who told his family that he was speaking from a military dormitory in Donetsk, the eastern Ukrainian region occupied by Russia.

Hemil, 23, said he had been eating well and had warm bedding. But the father knew he was trying to “hide his turmoil inside him”, he said. Hemil was on the front lines of Russia’s war on Ukraine, his role very different from the task of a Russian “army helper” that he had signed up for.

“That night, he didn’t want to hang up the call and was consumed by a deep longing for home,” Ashwin told Al Jazeera over the phone from his home in Surat city in India’s western state of Gujarat. The call lasted an hour.

It would be their last conversation.

Two days later, they received another call. It was not Hemil.

“Hemil has been killed in a missile strike,” said the man on the call in Hindi, identifying himself only as Imran from the southern Telangana state.

Imran told them the missile attack took place on February 21 – the day after Hemil’s call to his family – while he was digging a bunker.

“I felt like our world had come crashing down,” said Ashwin. He said Hemil’s shocked mother has been hospitalised several times since the news was broken to them. “She stopped eating and did not talk for days.”

Ashwin learned from Imran that three Indians had carried Hemil’s body in a truck to a military base. Beyond that, he said, he did not know the details surrounding his son’s death.

In early December, Hemil was offered a job as a helper in the Russian