Jakarta checks reports that Indonesians were recruited to fight for Russia

Indonesia is checking reports that its citizens have been recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine, after families called the embassy in Moscow and police in the Riau Islands opened a file on one named man. Ambassador Jose Antonio Morato Tavares said on 18 September that the mission had received dozens of calls from relatives who believed family members had been recruited after promises of high pay. He told the state news agency Antara that some of the calls came from Indonesians already in Russia.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Yvonne Mewengkang said earlier this month that missions in Russia and Ukraine, with other agencies, were looking at the backgrounds of eight Indonesians reported to be fighting on the Russian side. The ministry is also asking whether those eight were victims of job fraud or trafficking rather than volunteers. That distinction decides the case. A volunteer who signs a military contract is one legal problem. A worker who was promised a civilian job and then handed a rifle is another, and it pulls in police at home as well as consular staff abroad.

Natuna police are on the domestic end of one name. Chief Commissioner Novyan Aries Efendy said on Tuesday that officers were still verifying information about Rendi Apriyanto, 30, and were coordinating with the immigration office before collecting further data. The public record of Apriyanto is an undated photograph of him in military uniform. Police have not said he has been charged. They have said the report is not yet confirmed.

The route implied by the embassy calls is not a formal Indonesian deployment. Indonesia is not a party to the war. The pattern Tavares described is individual recruitment, often with a salary figure attached, reported after the person has already left. Dozens of family calls are not dozens of confirmed fighters. They are dozens of cases the embassy has been asked to find. Eight is the number the ministry has put on the list it is actively tracing. The gap between those two figures is the size of the unverified pile.

Recruitment of this kind has shown up in other Asian and African countries since 2022, usually through online job offers, language-school covers, or a contact already in Russia. Indonesia's addition is the Natuna file and the embassy count. Natuna matters because it is a border district with its own migration traffic. If Apriyanto left through a local port or airport, immigration data will show a date and a destination. Efendy's decision to start with the immigration office is the practical first step, not a conclusion.

Jakarta has not announced arrests of recruiters, a travel warning specific to military job offers, or a count of citizens confirmed dead or wounded. The concrete public facts are the ambassador's dozens of family calls, the ministry's list of eight, and a police check on one 30-year-old in Natuna. The open question is whether any of the eight can be reached, and whether the contracts they hold, if they hold contracts, were signed as soldiers or as workers.