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From saving lives in Nairobi to losing his in Ukraine, a soldier's death exposes a deadly trafficking ring preying on Kenya's veterans.

Oscar Agola was a hero who charged into the Westgate Mall terror attack to save strangers; he died a mercenary in a frozen trench 8,000 kilometers from home.
The revelation that a former Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldier, celebrated for his bravery against Al-Shabaab, has perished on the frontlines of the Russia-Ukraine war is a damning indictment of the economic desperation driving Kenya’s finest into the jaws of foreign conflicts. Agola’s death exposes a predatory recruitment pipeline that promises lucrative security jobs but delivers young men into the meat grinder of modern artillery warfare.
Agola, 38, left Kenya in mid-2025, enticed by agents promising a driver’s position in St. Petersburg with a salary that dwarfed his local prospects. Instead, upon arrival, his passport was seized, and he was conscripted into a Russian assault unit. His story is not unique; intelligence suggests dozens of former Kenyan servicemen have been funneled into the conflict, their combat experience making them premium assets for recruiters.
Charles Mutoka, Agola’s father, clutches a photo of his son in KDF ceremonial dress. "He fought for Kenya, and he lived," Mutoka wept. "He went to work for Russia, and they sent him back in a box." The family is now battling a bureaucratic stone wall, with neither the Kenyan Foreign Ministry nor the Russian Embassy offering a clear path for the repatriation of his remains.
As the body count rises, the silence from Nairobi is deafening. With youth unemployment at a crisis point, the export of labor has become an unofficial policy, but Agola’s death asks a question no politician wants to answer: What is the price of a Kenyan life on the global market?
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