Thousands of Nepalis were paid to join Russia’s war against Ukraine. Now they’re haunted by trauma and debt

On a freezing winter night in January, Khim Bahadur Thapa and two other Nepalis decided to risk their lives and flee the occupied Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to the Russian border, grasping at a small window of opportunity to return home alive.

They trudged through two-feet-deep snow from Bakhmut to the Russian border, where a prearranged car from an “agent” picked them up bound for Moscow 800km away.

The escape cost Thapa 600,000 rupees (US$4,500), money he did not have and had to borrow from home.

“I had so many hopes when going to Russia, but it didn’t turn out to be anything like I thought,” Thapa, 35, said. “I lost so much money, but I’m happy to come back alive.”

But others were tricked into the war zone by unscrupulous agents, according to six Nepali soldiers and the family members of those still in Russia, who told This Week in Asia they had taken out loans or poured their life savings into the endeavour in the hopes of making a higher return.

Now, disillusioned men like Thapa are making the harrowing journey back.

Nepalis who do make it back from the conflict – which has claimed the lives of at least 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers and an estimated 300,000 or more on the Russian side according to US intelligence reports – are returning with war wounds, trauma and mountains of additional debt. Many still in Russia are missing, presumed dead, wounded, or waiting to escape.

Given the illegal routes Nepalis took to fight in the Russian army – some also went to fight for Ukraine – their number remains hard to pin down.

Returnees and those still in Russia, quoting their Russian commanders, put the number at around 8,000 to 14,700 Nepalis, with hundreds more having been injured or killed.

Nepal’s foreign ministry, citing family members