Reports grow of Central Asian deaths in Russia's invasion of Ukraine

TASHKENT -- Coated in clay and dried mud, a fresh grave has appeared in a cemetery in the Uzbek city of Margilan.

At the base of the grave is a slab with the number 999 on it. The name of the deceased is missing.

This is the eternal resting place for Shokhrukh Tozhiboyev, a 23-year-old Uzbek citizen who was killed in Ukraine, the latest of the Central Asians -- some of them press-ganged into Russia's military -- killed while fighting in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Tozhiboyev's mother brought his body -- or more accurately, what remained of it -- to be buried in his homeland May 26.

"I brought my son's dismembered corpse here. His body was torn to pieces from a drone strike," Mukaddas Tozhiboyeva said tearfully in a video posted on Telegram by Uzbekistan's State Security Service.

She lays some basil next to his grave -- her son loved the scent of this plant, which always grew in their yard.

It is all the grief-stricken mother can do for her child, who is now gone forever.

Tozhiboyev, a migrant worker from Margilan, Fergana province, provided for his family by working in Russia.

"Mom, I need to feed all of us," Tozhiboyeva remembers her son saying right before he left.

Tozhiboyev worked in food service, as a labourer and in construction. Later he was able to open his own café and acquire a vehicle, which he operated as a cab for extra money.

It was while he was working as a driver that someone planted heroin on him, according to his mother.

Tozhiboyev was serving his prison sentence when a mercenary force "mobilised" him and sent to the war in Ukraine.

Tozhiboyev had never served in the army or held a weapon before, said his mother.

20,000 mercenaries killed

The Tozhiboyev family was poor, said Kanoathon Habibullayeva, the director of the mahalla (neighbourhood) where Shokhrukh grew up.

Shokhrukh, who grew up fatherless, was married and had one child, which is why he left for Russia three years ago. His widow is pregnant.

"We're all in shock about what happened. This is the first time something like this has happened in our mahalla. Right now there are 30 men of different ages from our mahalla working in Russia. Of course we're worried about their fate," Habibullayeva told Caravanserai.

"In our last phone conversation on September 10, he was complaining that despite refusing to serve and kill people, he was being forced to go there because he was young," Tozhiboyeva said in the video.

"I lost my child and breadwinner who wasn't even 24 years old. His children are orphans now. My daughter-in-law is a widow," she said.

"I don't wish that fate on anyone. People of Uzbekistan, be grateful for what you have here, and don't send your children anywhere. I beg of you."

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, some 20,000 mercenaries -- half of them recruited from prisons -- of the mercenary Wagner Group have been killed, according to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner.

About 50,000 prisoners fought in the battle of Bakhmut, and about 20% of them were killed.

The number of inmates killed fighting for Wagner in Ukraine was roughly equal to the number of professional Wagner mercenaries killed, said Prigozhin in an interview May 23. "Another 20% or so have been wounded, with wounds that prevent them from fighting for three or more months," Prigozhin added.

After the battle for Bakhmut, Wagner had 35,000 mercenaries left, he said.

Facing difficulty recruiting prisoners, Wagner has now set its sights on Central Asian migrants.

Russian authorities are attempting to recruit Central Asian migrant workers to fight against Ukraine, the British Ministry of Defence noted in an intelligence update in early May.

In March, the Uzbek State Security Service announced the death of another Uzbek citizen in Ukraine.

The resident of Karakalpakstan, a republic that is part of Uzbekistan, was serving a five-year sentence in a Russian correctional facility before he ended up in combat.

Uzbek protests

Uzbekistan could hold Prigozhin and Wagner Group employees criminally liable for recruiting Uzbek citizens, Botirjon Shermukhammedov, a Tashkent-based lawyer and editor of the website Migrant.uz, told Caravanserai.

Uzbek authorities should demand that Russia not recruit Uzbek citizens for the war. If Russia does not stop recruiting Uzbeks, no warnings to migrants will help, he said.

Uzbek-born human rights activist Valentina Chupik said that according to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations -- to which both Russia and Uzbekistan are parties -- countries are required to notify one another about the location or relocation of prisoners who are foreign citizens.

"There's no agreement on exchanging prisoners between the two countries. But Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service has regulations on the procedure for transferring someone to serve out a prison sentence in his [or her] home country, although it is rarely used," Chupik told Caravanserai.

Pulat Akhunov, an Uzbek politician living in Sweden, lamented the unwillingness of Uzbek authorities to officially state their position on this issue.

"That [silence] frees Russian authorities ... to forcibly send our citizens to war. Uzbekistan needs to officially protest and condemn this sort of practice," Akhunov told Caravanserai.