{"id":87995,"date":"2025-06-15T06:15:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T06:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tv.guardian.ng\/?p=87995"},"modified":"2025-06-15T06:15:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T06:15:18","slug":"putins-recruits-the-young-africans-fighting-for-russia-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/guardian.ng\/tv\/putins-recruits-the-young-africans-fighting-for-russia-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin\u2019s recruits: The young Africans fighting for Russia in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"dailymotion-player\"><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/x1ee8e.js\" data-video=\"k60zRvuTJIQcq1DfvyA\"><\/script><\/div><br><br><p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nicknamed the &#8220;Black Wagners&#8221;, hundreds of African men have been recruited by the Russian army to fight against Ukraine. Lured by promises of high wages, jobs or even Russian passports, some have voluntarily opted to join Russian President Vladimir Putin&#8217;s army. But for others, things are far more complicated: dozens have been manipulated and forcibly recruited. Lucile Chaussoy, Marc Kouho and Saloum San\u00e9 investigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_gam_disable_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1076,1539],"tags":[798,32223,835,983],"class_list":["post-87995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-putin","tag-recruits","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","post_format-post-format-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Putin\u2019s recruits: The young Africans fighting for Russia in Ukraine - GuardianTV<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nicknamed the &quot;Black Wagners&quot;, hundreds of African men have been recruited by the Russian army to fight against Ukraine.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/guardian.ng\/tv\/putins-recruits-the-young-africans-fighting-for-russia-in-ukraine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Putin\u2019s recruits: The young Africans fighting for Russia in Ukraine - 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