He remembers apocalyptic scenes from the front.
We were forced to cross two rivers, with many bodies floating in them. Then a large field, covered with hundreds of bodies. We were forced to run across it. With drones everywhere.
Of the 27 in his platoon, only Victor and one other survived. With gunshot wounds from the drones, he was taken to Moscow for treatment - and managed to get to the Kenyan embassy, which arranged for him to return home.
AFP spoke to three more men in Nairobi - Mark, Moses and Erik - who were similarly lured by President Vladimir Putin's regime. Private recruitment agencies offered them well-paid jobs in Russia. Victor would become a salesman, Mark and Moses a security guard, Erik an athlete. The monthly salary would be up to the equivalent of 27,000 kronor - a small fortune for many Kenyans.
Instead, Victor ended up at a military base outside St. Petersburg. He was presented with a contract in Russian, which he did not understand.
They said, "If you don't sign, you will die."
Several annual salaries
All four Kenyans AFP spoke to said they met many other Africans during their military service in Russia, from countries including Nigeria, Cameroon, Egypt and South Africa. The Russian regime is exploiting their "economic desperation," said Yuri Tokar, Ukraine's ambassador to Kenya.
They are looking everywhere for people who could become cannon fodder.
Officially, Russia has not even introduced general mobilization within the country, but claims to be able to fill the ranks of the military with voluntary recruitment. However, this is often an expensive affair for the authorities. The AP news agency reports, for example, from the Khanty-Mansiysk region that new soldiers can receive up to the equivalent of 450,000 kronor in various bonuses. This is several times the normal annual salary in the area.
5,000 kilometers away
But in the end, many are paid poorly. Mark tells AFP that foreign recruits were offered the option to break their contracts and go home, for a fee of 35,000 kronor - an unattainable sum.
We had no choice.
And many don't come home at all. 72-year-old Charles Ojiambo Mutoka in Nairobi has received the news that his son Oscar has been killed in the war. His son is buried in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, over 5,000 kilometers away.
"They should be ashamed," he told AFP.
We fight our own wars, we don't bring any Russians here. Why are they taking our people?
Russia's ruthless war strategy in Ukraine has resulted in very high casualties. According to AFP, twice as many people are believed to have died on the Russian side as on the Ukrainian side in the war.
According to a running calculation from the exiled Russian outlet Mediazona and the BBC, at least 165,000 soldiers on the Russian side have been confirmed dead. That means over 100 deaths every day since the start of the major invasion in 2022.
And the real numbers are likely much higher. The UK Ministry of Defence and US President Donald Trump, among others, have estimated that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has lost up to 1.5 million men - around 1,000 every day. However, that figure includes both dead and soldiers who have been wounded so badly that they cannot return to the battlefield.
