Russia began to recruit veterans of the Afghan special forces for the war with Ukraine. We are talking about the elite commando corps of the Afghan National Army: the fighters were trained by American instructors and abandoned in the country after the Taliban seized power in 2021. Foreign Policy writes about it.
Sources of the publication in the Afghan armed forces and security services claim that the fighters, who fought for almost 20 years along with American and other allied special forces, are already receiving offers to join the Wagner PMC in order to go to war in Ukraine. They are allegedly contacted via WhatsApp and Signal.
According to FP, the Russian authorities want to attract up to 10,000 ex-commandos.
“They have no country, no job, no future. They have nothing to lose. They accept jobs for $3-4 a day in Pakistan or Iran, or $10 a day in Turkey. If the Wagner PMC offered them $1,000 to become fighters again, they wouldn't refuse. If you recruit one person, he can force half of his old unit to join because they are like brothers. Pretty soon you will have a whole platoon, ”says one of the interlocutors of the publication.
FP alleges that Iran is involved in the recruitment. Recruits, according to one of the ex-commandos, are delivered from Afghanistan to Russia via Tehran.
The commando corps of the Afghan National Army was created in 2007 under the guidance of instructors from the United States. It ceased to exist on August 15, 2021 due to the Taliban coming to power in the country. The United States evacuated only a few hundred senior officers, the rest fled the country or went into hiding, trying to avoid reprisals. According to the FP, between 20,000 and 30,000 ex-commandos remained in Afghanistan and neighboring countries.
The US has spent almost $90 billion to build the Afghan National Defense Force. As the FP notes, these forces were “generally incompetent and handed over the country to the Taliban in a matter of weeks,” but the unit has always been respected – it was trained by US Navy SEALs and the British Special Air Service.