Afghan commandos trained by Allied forces are being recruited by RUSSIA to fight in Ukraine

Afghan commandos who had been trained by Allied forces to fight the Taliban are now being recruited by Russia to fight in Ukraine.

Up to 30,000 members of the elite National Army Commando Corps were abandoned by the West when the country fell to the hardline Islamist group last year.

Now, the US-trained light infantry force that fought side by side with allied troops for nearly 20 years could be joining Vladimir Putin’s savage war effort.

It is believed the shadowy Wagner Group is behind the recruitment drive, exploiting the jobless commandos.

An ex-official told Foreign Policy: ‘I am telling you [the recruiters] are Wagner Group. They are gathering people from all over.

‘[The Afghan commandos] would be better used by Western allies to fight alongside Ukrainians. They don’t want to fight for the Russians; the Russians are the enemy. But what else are they going to do?’

Many say they have been contacted via WhatsApp and Signal with offers to join the Russian ‘foreign legion’ in Ukraine.

Senior military and security officials in Afghanistan fear as many as 10,000 soldiers could be tempted to join, because they have ‘nothing to lose’.

Only a few hundred senior officers were evacuated by the US in the dramatic withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021.

Many Afghan soldiers fled to neighbouring countries and others went into hiding fearing reprisals from the Taliban for their loyalty to the collapsed government and the West.

The commandos were honed by US Navy Seals and the British SAS, with a staggering £80billion spent on their training by the US.

An ex-security official said their call-up to Ukraine would be a ‘game-changer’ in Putin’s faltering war.

Last year, Rep. Michael McCaul warned abandoning the commandos could prove to be a costly mistake by the US as they could be recruited for adversary armies.

One Afghan ex-commando captain who is now in hiding said he helped his comrades connect with recruiters in Iran.

They were flown to Tehran and then on to Russia where their phones are switched off and they carry out their mission ‘secretly’, he said. 

The 35-year-old said: ‘We are very disappointed. For 18 years, shoulder to shoulder, we performed dangerous tasks with American, British, and Norwegian consultants. Now, I am in hiding. I am suffering every second.’

Despite the appealing offer, many are reluctant to fight for a country which under the guise of the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and recently supported the Taliban.

It is not the first time Russia has tapped up foreign powers to assist in its brutal campaign in Ukraine.

Syrian mercenaries with years of experience fighting in their country’s civil war were offered $1,000 a month for joining the war.

The first group of at least 300 of Syrian fighters arrived in Russia in March to begin military training – and to return the favour to Moscow for helping Al-Assad in the civil war, the New York Times reported. 

Iranian troops have also been secretly sent to the frontline to help train Moscow’s forces in how to operate kamikaze drones.

Up to 50 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specialists have been sent to the southern and eastern front with hundreds of Shahed-136 drones.

Iran has denied shipping drones or troops to be used against Ukraine 

But Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said: ‘It’s just indicative of the kinds of rhetoric that you hear coming from Iran and from Russia, trying to say that these are not Iranian drones when they clearly are.

‘In many ways, these drones are used to, as psychological weapons used to create fear. 

‘But from an operational, from a strategic standpoint, it still doesn’t change the fact that Russian forces on the ground continue to lose territory or at best hold ground.’

But the recruitment of Afghan troops will serve as a major embarrassment to the US, after years and billions of dollars spent on their training.

The Wagner Group, led by billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been linked to a string of killings, rapes and war crimes is known as Putin’s private army which carries out his dirty work at an arm’s length from the state.

The army-for-hire, allegedly run by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin – a close ally of the Russian president who is often dubbed ‘Putin’s chef’ – was flown into Ukraine at the start of the war.

It has previously been deployed to Africa, where it has carried out black ops operations that the Kremlin wants done while avoiding direct responsibility. 

They are currently engaged in a bloody battle with Ukraine in the eastern town of Bakhmut.

Russia has officially denied the group’s existence and its origins are murky, though it first appeared in 2014 in the Donbas.

Initially, it was made up of only a few hundred Russian army veterans. They were ordered to assassinate Donbas leaders who were broadly supportive of Russia, but refused to follow instructions from the Kremlin.

These assassinations were then blamed on Ukrainian forces, according to security experts. 

Wagner’s founder is Dmitry Utkin, a shaven-headed former lieutenant colonel in Spetsnaz – Russia’s special forces. He named it after his Spetsnaz code name.

Utkin is seen as a neo-Nazi and was described by one Russian newspaper as having ‘an appreciation of the aesthetic of the Third Reich’, complete with tattoos of the Waffen-SS on his shoulder and an eagle on his chest.

Mercenaries are illegal in Russia but Putin used Wagner to crush Syrian rebels and even awarded Utkin a medal. 

Eventually, however, the Wagner Group became so dangerous that even the Russian government refused to pay them.  

This led to Putin appointing oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin to control the group.