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'It was obvious we were being treated like shields, but it is war and there is nothing you can do but follow orders from the commanders,' Ilunga said.
He was wounded when a grenade exploded beside him, tearing into his hand. Moments later, exhausted and injured, he surrendered to Ukrainian forces who treated him and took him to their base to be processed as a PoW.
He was eventually taken to a camp in Lviv, close to the border with Poland, where he has been for the past two months.
Ilunga is being held in prison with mercenaries from all over Africa, the kind of foreign fighters that Stimson trained.
Among them is Willy Macharia, 23, from Kenya who says he was tricked into fighting after moving to Russia in July 2025 to become a driver.
His parents paid an agency in the Kenyan capital Nairobi £370 to facilitate the move to Moscow in order to change his family's life.
But once he arrived and signed his employment contract, he found himself pulling up at a military base after a seven-hour car journey.
A few days later he was taken to a training base where he picked up a weapon for the first time.
Macharia added: 'I was not scared but I knew what was ahead of me. It is easy for you to die here so I entered into survival mode.' He trained for just three weeks before being deployed to the frontline, although he refused to disclose his specific role in the Russian military.
'I saw the dead bodies of lots of Russian soldiers,' Macharia said. 'I was scared because they were everywhere.
'I was praying that I would make it back alive.'
Three months after arriving, he was with four Russian soldiers when they heard a whirring sound around them. They were surrounded by drones.
Macharia ran for his life, scrambling for cover wherever he could, but was easily spotted by a drone. Moments later, a grenade was fired at him, striking his leg.
'I felt the impact immediately, but I didn't realise I was injured until I tried to run away again,' he said.
'I looked down at my trousers and it was filled with blood. Luckily no shrapnel hit my leg but it was very painful.'
He lay bleeding beneath a tree, and within ten minutes was approached by Ukrainian soldiers.
As Russia's foreign recruits rush to get in formation and prepare for another gruelling day of drills, a distinct English accent cuts through the military training base.
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