Citizens of Uzbekistan captured in Ukraine: One is a migrant, the other - a student

In the video circulating on the Internet, you can see that the Ukrainian military captured two Uzbeks. Both men, who served in the Russian army, said they were from Samarkand.

One of them said in the video that he has been working in Russia for five years and was forced to fight while working illegally. The other warrior said that he was a student and agreed to participate in military operations for money.

“I worked in construction in Moscow. I had no documents, and I had been working for 5 years. I was forced to come here. I did not want to come here. Forgive me. There were five people in the car we arrived in. I do not know the commander’s name. I do not know exactly where I spent the night last night,” the young man who is from the Samarkand region said. 

“I am twenty-two years old. I have not served anywhere. I was hired as a mortarman in the private military company “Redut”. To be honest, I do not know where we are coming from or where we are going. We were brought here in “Kamaz”. There was another guy from Uzbekistan next to me. I studied in Russia, because I needed money, I was hired by a private military company,” the young man who introduced himself as Mukhriddin Akhmedov said.

So far, the Uzbek side has not reacted to the incident.

But public activists are not indifferent to the issue of compatriots captured in the uniform of the Russian military on the Ukrainian territory. In particular, the well-known businessman Zafar Khoshimov says that there are traitors in Russia who are inciting compatriots to war, and they must be brought to justice. 

According to Khoshimov, these persons, who are considered leaders of the Uzbek diaspora, do not hesitate to gain money and prestige in their “new homeland” at the expense of the blood and lives of their compatriots. Naive young people who fell for their deception are losing their lives, blood and freedom.

Earlier, Jakhongir Jalolov, who considers himself the leader of the Central Asian society of the Uzbeks in the Perm Oblast, organized a battalion named after Amir Temur in a meeting with the participation of Uzbek labor migrants and called to join the battle against Ukraine on the side of Russia. 

Also, Bakhrom Ismoilov, who announced himself as the head of the Uzbek diaspora in Moscow, called on the citizens of Uzbekistan to join the Russian army, saying that in return, promised the possibility of obtaining the citizenship of this country. 

At that time, the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Moscow and the Foreign Labor Migration Agency called on compatriots residing in Russia not to participate in various volunteer battalions and warned of the consequences.

According to the legislation of Uzbekistan, it is a crime to hire a person to take part in an armed conflict or hostilities on the territory of another country or on its side for material benefit or any other personal benefit, and those who commit such an act are punished with imprisonment from 5 to 15 years.