The Russian embassy in Accra said the European country does not recruit foreign nationals for war.
It said that if credible information became available about any Ghanaian who might have been unlawfully conscripted into its military service, the embassy was prepared to review it through the relevant authorities and pursue the necessary remedy.
The Russian Ambassador to Ghana, Andrei Ordash, said this in an interview with GraphicOnline in Accra.
“Allegations that Russia is deliberately involved in any unlawful recruitment of citizens of African states are simply untrue,” he stated.
Background
There have been concerns that Russia is illegally recruiting Africans to fight in its war with Ukraine, using deceptive means.
On July 28, 2026, GraphicOnline published a news story to the effect that the government had launched investigations into alleged criminal recruitment networks supposedly recruiting Ghanaians into Russia’s war with Ukraine after 272 Ghanaian nationals were reported to have been drafted into the conflict through fraudulent overseas employment schemes.
The publication said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who announced the measures at a media briefing, stated that 55 of the reported cases involved Ghanaians who had died in the war, while two others were being held as prisoners of war.
The publication reported Mr Ablakwa to have said that information gathered during his visit to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, indicated that the recruitment of Ghanaians formed part of a broader pattern involving nationals of several African countries.
"It is estimated that about 1,780 African nationals from 36 countries have joined Russian forces," he was quoted as saying by the publication.
A September 10, 2026, briefing by Amnesty International said Russia had used deceptive, coercive and exploitative practices to recruit foreign nationals into its military forces to send them to fight in Ukraine.
It detailed how recruiters had lured individuals from abroad into the Russian Armed Forces on false pretences and exploited the precarious circumstances of migrants and refugees already present in Russia.
It said those targeted were primarily from low-income countries in the Global South.
A February 25, 2026 Al Jazeera news report sourced from Reuters said Ukraine had accused Russia of using deception to recruit more than 1,700 Africans to join its war effort as the conflict dragged into a fifth year.
The story said Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, made the allegation during a news conference in Kyiv with his Ghanaian counterpart, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.
Concern
Mr Ordash said, "Russia understands that the Ghanaian government is concerned about the fate of its citizens. It is entirely natural that any state should seek to establish the circumstances under which its citizens found themselves in a zone of armed conflict and to ensure that their rights are protected.
However, it is essential to draw a very clear distinction between two different situations.”
He explained that Russian legislation permitted foreign nationals to undertake military service on a contractual basis, emphasising that if an adult voluntarily made such a decision and entered into a contract with full awareness of the nature of their obligations, the mere fact of their foreign nationality did not in itself render their service unlawful.
He was, however, quick to add that a completely different situation arose if a person had been deceived, coerced and misled regarding the nature of the work or the terms of the contract or had fallen victim to a criminal scheme.
He said such cases needed to be investigated.
Security partnership
Touching on security partnership between Ghana and Russia, Mr Ordash said Russia was ready to strengthen cooperation with Ghana in the field of security in ways that aligned with Ghana’s own requirements and national interests.
"For us, the most obvious area is the fight against terrorism and extremism. This issue is of direct relevance to West Africa, as the terrorist threat spreading from the Sahel is gradually approaching the states on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea.”
“Russia stands ready to share its experience in the fields of counter-terrorism, specialist training, threat analysis, border security, the fight against transnational crime and other areas," he said.
The Ambassador said in doing so, they always took into consideration Ghana's own position of consistently advocating African solutions to the region's security challenges.
