From TikTok to the Frontlines: How Iraq’s Jobless Youth Are Being Lured to Fight in Russia’s War

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — When 24-year-old Mohammed Imad appeared in his final TikTok video, smiling in military fatigues as smoke billowed behind him in what looked like a Ukrainian battlefield, his caption read simply: “Pray for me.” Next to it, a Russian flag. That was in May. Since then, silence.

Months later, Mohammed’s mother, Zeinab Jabbar, still clutches his photograph in their modest home in Musayab, south of Baghdad.

“He went and never came back,” she said through tears. “We Iraqis have seen so many wars. We have had enough. What do we have to do with Russia and Ukraine?”

Her son’s story reflects a growing and troubling phenomenon: young Iraqis — disillusioned, unemployed, and desperate — being drawn to the frontlines of Russia’s war in Ukraine by promises of money, a passport, and a future.

Born during Iraq’s sectarian bloodshed, Mohammed grew up in a country defined by instability. Like many of his generation, he witnessed war after war — from the U.S.-led Iraqi Freedom Operation to the brutal rise and fall of the Islamic State group.

Today, with one in three young Iraqis unemployed and corruption endemic, the promise of earning $2,800 a month — more than four times the salary of an Iraqi soldier — can feel irresistible.

Influencers and recruiters on TikTok and Telegram amplify that allure, advertising “opportunities” to join Russia’s ranks with sign-up bonuses up to $20,000 and a guaranteed Russian passport.

AFP’s investigation found that recruiters not only post flashy videos of soldiers in uniform but also provide language guides — teaching phrases such as “mission accomplished” and “suicide drone attack” in Russian — to prepare their recruits for battle.

According to AFP, In the early years of the Syrian war, Moscow openly recruited Middle Eastern fighters to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Now, social media channels have become the new recruiting ground — this time for Ukraine.

Telegram channels teem with users offering Iraqis “visa invitations” and assistance with travel, often requesting little more than a passport copy and phone number. The recruiters, many of them Iraqi fighters themselves, promise to arrange everything, from airfare to enlistment.

But behind the patriotic slogans and images of camaraderie, families are left with silence — or, worse, death notices.

Mohammed’s sister, Faten, spends hours scouring TikTok and Telegram for any sign of her brother. She’s heard every rumor — that he had the flu, that he was wounded, that he was killed near Bakhmut by a Ukrainian drone.

The grim news finally came from Abbas Hamadullah, an Iraqi fighter better known online as Abbas al-Munaser, who had guided Mohammed’s path to Russia. “He was killed,” Munaser told AFP, describing how Mohammed had stood up to fire at a drone while others took cover.

“If he is dead, we want his body,” Faten said. “It’s a shame that young men are going to die in Russia.”

 
Munaser himself joined the Russian army in 2024 after failing to find work in Iraq. He now claims to earn around $2,500 a month — enough, he says, to support his family. “There is no future in Iraq,” he said.

“It is not about Russia or Ukraine. My priority is my family.”

Yet he admits the price of that income is blood. “There is death here,” he told AFP. “We lived through many wars in Iraq, but this one is different — it’s a war of advanced technology, a war of drones.”

Despite acknowledging the danger, Munaser said he renewed his contract for another year and even boasts of fighting under a Muslim Chechen commander.

Iraqi officials estimate that hundreds of their citizens are now fighting for Russia, though the true number remains unclear. Ukraine’s ambassador in Baghdad, Ivan Dovhanych, said many “are not fighting for an idea — they are looking for a job.”

Baghdad, officially neutral in the war, has moved to curb the phenomenon. In September, an Iraqi court sentenced a man to life in prison for trafficking people to fight “in foreign countries.” The same month, Iraq’s embassy in Moscow warned of “attempts to lure or coerce” Iraqis into joining the conflict.

Iraq is now grappling with a diplomatic and political uproar after Russian Ambassador Elbrus Kutrashev suggested that Iraqi youth could take part in Russia’s war against Ukraine—remarks that drew widespread condemnation and renewed debate over Iraq’s sovereignty.

Speaking on October 17, Kutrashev claimed that “thousands of Iraqis would join the Russian army if given the opportunity,” a statement that the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (IOHR) denounced as a clear breach of international law.

“Kutrashev’s promotion of such an idea is a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and international law,” said IOHR director Mustafa Saadoun, stressing that international law strictly prohibits the recruitment or conscription of civilians into foreign armed conflicts.

Still, the stigma persists. In rural Iraq, families of those who fought for Russia face intense shame. One man’s relatives buried him in secret after his body returned from Ukraine in a coffin — along with $10,000 in compensation.

“It is heartbreaking,” a family member told AFP. “A boy died abroad and was buried in the dark, because people said he brought dishonor.”

For Iraq, the war in Ukraine is both geographically and morally distant — yet its consequences are increasingly personal. Each new coffin that returns from the Russian front is a reminder of a generation trapped between poverty and propaganda, their lives consumed by conflicts not their own.

As Zeinab Jabbar clings to her son’s picture, her words carry the weary wisdom of a mother and a nation alike:

“We have seen too much war. We only want our sons to come home.”