In October last year, David Moothappan saw a Facebook advertisement offering jobs as security guards in Russia.
The promised monthly salary - 204,000 roubles ($2,201; £1,739) - seemed a huge amount to the school-dropout fisherman from the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Weeks later, Mr Moothappan, 23, found himself on the warfront in the Russian-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
“It’s death and destruction everywhere,” he says, when asked about his time there.
He and another man from Kerala managed to return home last week. They are among several Indians who were duped by agents into fighting for Russian forces in the country’s war with Ukraine over the past few months.
I have mixed feelings about this. While they’re poor and were duped they still went to help with russia’s illegal, genocidal invasion. It’s hard to feel too bad about them getting pulled directly into the fight they’re helping.
I saw another report that covered this and it didn’t seem like they had a lot of choice, even though in this article paints a different picture.