This database documents Zimbabwean nationals recruited into Russia’s war against Ukraine, including those currently fighting, those who have returned, and those reported missing or deceased.
Drawing on trusted sources in recruiters, returnees, affected families and community informants, the project seeks to build the most comprehensive and credible record possible while helping families searching for relatives and improving public understanding of recruitment patterns. Information will be collected through structured interviews and case-intake processes, then verified through cross-referencing and confirmation from multiple independent sources.
The Russia-Ukraine War: Our stories of Zimbabwean involvement
This project follows a strict victim-centred and “do no harm” approach: personal information will not be published without informed consent, families will be contacted before the disclosure of sensitive cases, and public outputs will be anonymised or aggregated where necessary. All records will be stored in a secure, encrypted database accessible only to authorised personnel, ensuring that the documentation remains accurate, ethical and protective of the people most
For more information on this dataset, please contact research@cite.org.zw.
Notes on interpretation. CASE STATUS uses a controlled vocabulary: ‘Active in Russia’ (confirmed in Russia; no adverse status), ‘Missing’ (verified missing per the project’s two-source verification protocol), ‘Missing (reported)’ (single-source family report awaiting corroboration), ‘Deceased’ (verified), ‘Deceased (reported)’ (single-source family report of death; not yet corroborated by casualty list or official record), ‘Returned to Zimbabwe’ (subject repatriated or safely home), ‘Status unknown’ (insufficient evidence to classify at time of publication). REGION OF ORIGIN is reported at provincial granularity or diaspora status; no sub-provincial location is disclosed. ‘Zimbabwe (region not disclosed)’ indicates that the subject’s nationality is confirmed but the region has not been specified in project records. ‘Not disclosed’ indicates no location data of any kind is held. YEAR OF DEPARTURE reports the year the subject is understood to have left Zimbabwe or a departure point in the SA-corridor. PROVENANCE NOTE: approximately 60 records inherit ‘2024’ as a year-of-departure default from an original documentation batch. Where subsequent informant reports have supplied a corrected year, the record has been updated. Others remain subject to verification. Absence of data is recorded as ‘Not disclosed’.
