In an opinion article titled, Putin’s ‘meat-grinder’ is being fed with African lives, he likened Putin’s war strategy in Ukraine to Joseph Stalin’s Human wave during World War II, which is a mass infantry charge designed to overwhelm the enemy line.
He said these waves of soldiers advance against Ukrainian positions until most of them are killed.
“They are succeeded by the next wave, who, hopefully, reach a little further, before they too are killed and replaced by another wave.
“Putin knows he cannot sustain losses at the current rate, and he is therefore exploiting the desperation of young Africans and deceiving them to fuel his war,” Sheva wrote.
Citing Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, he noted that as of November 2025, about 1,700 Africans from 36 countries were fighting in Ukraine, with numbers rising sharply since then.
He said an intelligence report presented to the Kenyan parliament estimates that 1,000 recruits had come from Kenya alone.
Many of the recruits, he said, were lured with promises of cash bonuses or Russian citizenship that allegedly evaporated on arrival.
He lamented that they were instead dispatched to the front lines with minimal training, inadequate equipment and little expectation of returning.
He quoted a Kenyan recruit, who spoke on the Panel54 Podcast last week, as saying, “The survival rate at the front line is zero, and their corpses litter the battlefield with no way of accounting for them because as long as the war is sustained, they don’t care.”
The colonel contrasted legitimate African employment in the global security sector, ranging from guarding oil infrastructure in the Middle East to securing airports in Somalia.
He said with Russia, it is a brazen deception.
“Russia’s social media-based illegal recruitment drive is filled with promises of employment, financial opportunity and eventual settlement and citizenship in Russia. These are all hollow promises,” he wrote.
He also highlighted the appalling conditions faced by the African conscripts.
He pointed to videos circulating on social media showing inhumane treatment, racial prejudice and one particularly horrific clip, where a terrified African recruit was pushed towards the front line with a live landmine strapped to his chest.
Looking beyond the battlefield, Sheva warned of serious long-term risks when the survivors eventually return home.
“After their ambitions and hopes were replaced with the trauma of fighting on the front line, many Africans who travelled to Russia will return home bearing the scars of war, both visible and internal,” he wrote.
Without proper demobilisation and reintegration programmes, he said, these young men could face PTSD, become vulnerable to radicalisation by insurgent groups or be drawn into other conflicts.
“Putin has long criticised his Western rivals for the legacy left by the colonial period. But his hypocrisy in talking about the brutality of colonialism, while recruiting desperate Africans for his ‘meat grinder’ campaign, is exposing his true nature and highlights his underlying view of Africans. He is paying for his invasion of Ukraine with African blood.”