Russia is sending thousands of migrants from Central Asia to the war with Ukraine.
This is stated in a report by the UK Ministry of Defense.
The intelligence report quotes the head of Russia's Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, who said that the Russian authorities had identified 30,000 migrants who had recently become Russian citizens and were not registered for military service. He also boasted that 10,000 of them had already been sent to Ukraine. Bastrykin claimed that these migrants would dig trenches and perform other duties in the rear areas.
Russian media have previously reported that security forces have been harassing migrants, especially from Central Asia, to force them to join the Russian army in exchange for citizenship or to avoid arrest.
"This is likely yet another inventive means of bolstering military recruitment, while attempting to limit the impact on those parts of the Russian population that have greater political agency," the British Ministry of Defense wrote.
Earlier, Apostrophe wrote that the Pentagon has not yet seen evidence of North Korea's preparations to send its engineering troops to Russia for the war in Ukraine.