The Ukrainian national project "I Want to Live", created to help Russian soldiers voluntarily surrender, published a list of 1,110 Uzbek nationals who signed a contract with the Russian Armed Forces and participated in military operations against Ukraine.
As underscored in the publication, this is an incomplete list. Taking into account the people from Uzbekistan who have Russian citizenship, the total number of Uzbeks involved in the war may reach several thousands.
The published list includes at least 109 dead. The youngest of them was less than 21 years old, the oldest was 62 years old. One of the mercenaries died on the eighth day after signing the contract.
"Let's clarify - this is not a list of prisoners of war. This is a list of citizens of Uzbekistan who are fighting or fought against Ukraine on the side of the Russian Federation," the project said in a statement.
The authors of the publication underscore that Uzbeks often sign contracts with the Russian army under pressure - "raids and threats of deportation."
The project urged the Uzbek authorities to pay attention to the practice of recruiting Uzbeks into the ranks of the Russian army and expressed hope for assistance in stopping it.
The Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Justice of Uzbekistan have repeatedly warned that participation in military actions on the territory and on the side of third countries is a criminal offense for Uzbeks. According to Article 154 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan, Becoming Mercenary provision, that is, participation on the territory of a foreign state in an armed conflict or military actions of a person who is not a citizen or serviceman of a country in conflict, or who does not permanently reside in the territory controlled by a party to the conflict, in order to receive material compensation, is punishable by imprisonment for 5 to 10 years.
According to Article 154-1 of the Criminal Code, the joining by a citizen of Uzbekistan into military service, service in the security agencies, police, military justice or other similar agencies of foreign states is punishable by a fine of up to 300 basic calculation units (112.5 million soums) or correctional labor for up to 3 years, and in case of recruitment - up to 5 years of imprisonment.
Since 2023, the courts of Uzbekistan have made a number of rulings on such cases. However, the sentences for Becoming Mercenary in the last year have been lenient. If in October 2023 a resident of the Tashkent province, who fought in Ukraine in 2014-2015 on the side of the self-proclaimed DPR, was sentenced to five years in prison, then in January 2025 the appellate court replaced the real term of six years of imprisonment with a suspended sentence.
A 22-year-old Uzbek man, who was awarded a medal and Russian citizenship for participating in military operations in Ukraine on the Russian side, also received a suspended sentence instead of a five-year prison term in November 2024.
In December 2024, a court in Uzbekistan sentenced a 39-year-old man to 4 years and 2 months of house arrest for participating in the war in Ukraine on the Russian side. The defendant stated that he killed more than 10 Ukrainian soldiers during the military operations.
