October 17, 2026
Promises of job opportunities in the construction sector in Russia turned into a death journey for dozens of Bangladeshi workers. The Bangladeshi police announced the killing of at least 20 of them, confirming the involvement of an international human trafficking network in luring victims with fake contracts and forcing them to fight in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
In a press conference held in the capital, Dhaka, security official Muhammad Asaduzzaman explained that the network relied on local intermediaries to lure workers into its trap under the guise of construction work. Preliminary investigations revealed, according to what was reported by the German News Agency, that the victims were handed over to the army upon their arrival on Russian territory, where they were stripped of their passports and mobile phones.
According to the security account, the victims underwent a brief military training program lasting only three weeks, before they were placed on the battle fronts without any sufficient physical or tactical preparation to face the battle conditions.
In the same context, the police quoted two survivors who returned to Bangladesh after being injured, saying that a batch of 30 Bangladeshis arrived in Russia at the beginning of last May. The first day of their field deployment documented the killing of 17 of them as a result of attacks launched by drones, while three others later died of their injuries in the hospital, bringing the death toll to at least 20 dead.
Initial police investigations indicated that these workers were used as military “bait” to reveal the locations and positions of the opposing forces. Against the backdrop of these developments, the security authorities announced the arrest of two people on suspicion of direct involvement in a human trafficking network.
The Bangladeshi authorities are continuing their intensive investigations to dismantle the network’s threads and pursue the intermediaries involved in luring victims, after survivors’ testimonies charted the full course of the tragedy. From the brilliance of fake job promises, to the holocausts of the Russian battlefronts.
