JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A 10th person has been arrested on suspicion of violating South African mercenary laws by trying to travel to Russia from South Africa to fight in the war in Ukraine, authorities said Thursday.
Nine other people were arrested this week as part of a joint investigation between Interpol and South African police into recruitment drives for the war.
Five of the suspects appeared in the Kempton Park Magistrates Court on Tuesday, and prosecutors indicated that they would oppose their bail applications.
The other four were expected in court Thursday after they were arrested at a hotel in Johannesburg while preparing to board flights to Russia, according to police spokesperson Katlego Mogale.
The first nine suspects have been identified as Zimbabwean nationals. Prosecutors said Tuesday that five of them had provided Zimbabwean addresses when they were processed. They will face charges relating to violations of South Africa’s Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, which prohibits mercenary activity and regulates military assistance to parties in foreign conflicts, including recruitment and training.
Several groups of South Africans have been repatriated after saying they were duped into fighting on the front lines in Ukraine. They said they were initially promised to receive security training in Russia. Reports from other African countries said many were enticed with promises of lucrative jobs and generous benefits through false advertising on social media platforms. Authorities have arrested several people in South Africa for allegedly facilitating the recruitments.
Radio presenter Nonkululeko Mantula was charged in late 2025 with recruiting four South African men to join Russia’s military. The men also faced charges.
In Zimbabwe, authorities said in March that 15 citizens had been killed in the war in Ukraine and that they were seeking the return of 66 others. They said recruits were promised well-paid jobs but had their travel documents confiscated and were forced into combat.
Kenya’s government said in February that more than 1,000 citizens had been recruited to fight for Russia. Families protested in Nairobi in March, demanding their relatives’ return and the prosecution of those responsible.
Police also investigated allegations that Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, a daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma, helped recruit 17 South African men to fight for Russia with promises of security training. She denied wrongdoing and resigned from Parliament in November 2025 following the allegations
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
A mural with a picture of Ukrainian soldiers is seen on a shelter during an evacuation to a safe area amid a local ceasefire linked to a humanitarian aid mission in Oleshky, in Ukraine's Kherson region, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Matvii Yermolenko is 2, but he already knows the words for siren and air defense. This winter, his mother decided to take him out of Kyiv.
“There is sadness, but even stronger is the understanding of what I have to do — leave,” Matvii’s mother, Kateryna Tsvihun, said, adding that they will come back in spring. “I cannot live without Kyiv and Ukraine. I am rooted here, my child is Ukrainian, and my husband is fighting for this.”
Ukrainians are bracing for what many expect to be the hardest winter of the war. Last year, heating disruptions left thousands of people in freezing apartments in Kyiv. Now, officials and analysts say, the badly damaged energy system is increasingly struggling to withstand attacks, putting the country’s resilience to another test. With no end to the war in sight, many people are thinking only about getting through the coming months.
Kyiv is already under strain. Since Aug. 22, not a single day has passed in the capital without an air raid threat, often followed by drone attacks during the day and missiles at night. Some residents have moved to other parts of the country or abroad for the winter. While it's impossible to calculate how many people left the capital, changes in the rental market offer a possible clue.
“In September, we saw that the number of flats available to rent was increasing in Kyiv, whilst it was decreasing in a number of western cities," Liudmyla Kiriukhina, the head of the statistics department at LUN, a Ukrainian real estate platform, said. “This could have indicated that tenants were moving from the capital to the west of the country.”
Exploiting its advantage in jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles, Russia has expanded its targets in the city to include gas stations, data centers, warehouses, big-box stores and bridges that are crucial for civilian transport in a city divided by the Dnipro River. Electricity disruptions have caused problems on the subway, Kyiv’s main transport artery, while water supply issues are increasingly common. Some residents have also criticized local authorities' winter preparations.
But leaving costs money, and many more are staying, stocking up on power banks, water containers and portable gas stoves.
Kateryna Tsvihun, 41, found last winter very difficult. She could not bear the thought of her son going through more power outages, let alone possibly losing heating as well. So she told her husband, a soldier since 2022, that she wanted to spend this winter elsewhere.
She could not find a suitable option in Ukraine, but a Facebook group for mothers who like to travel led her to one in Albania.
“The birth of a child is the ultimate game-changer,” she said. “Before, no matter how scared I was, I stayed in Kyiv and did not even think about leaving.”
Russia recently struck an area near a subway station where she and Matvii often go for walks. “It’s a bit scary to stay,” she said. “But it’s still our home, so we will come back this spring.”
She gave her portable power station, power banks and rechargeable lamps to relatives staying in the capital. For the trip, she bought a large, light-blue suitcase, packing only with practical things and a few of Matvii’s small toys.
“I see it as an opportunity to exhale, because the tiredness and pressure have been piling up over these years of war, the lonely waiting for my husband, and the attacks,” she said.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said last week that Russia had continued to attack power generation facilities and substations. “Attacks on the energy sector are not stopping,” it said in a statement.
“The situation in Kyiv is especially difficult right now: People and businesses are facing many hours of electricity and water outages,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Repeated strikes and constant air raid alerts are making repairs take much longer, he said.
“This winter could be just as hard, or even harder than the last one,” Andrii Tkachov, acting head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said. “The enemy will keep striking critical infrastructure and trying to disrupt residents’ heating and water supply.”
He said Russia's aim is to create a crisis and humanitarian and social tensions in the capital, Ukraine's most populous city and the seat of its main state institutions.
“The enemy understands that attacks on Kyiv will affect the morale of the entire country. The main goal is to break Kyiv,” Tkachov said. “But, as we say, Kyiv rests on three pillars: air defense, our utility and energy workers, and the self-organization of its residents.”
As of Nov. 1, the number of active rental listings in Kyiv had risen by 87% compared with Aug. 1, according to LUN. In September, the number of flats offered for rent during the month rose in Kyiv but fell in several western cities, including Uzhhorod, Lviv, Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk. According to LUN, this could point to tenants moving west from the capital, but more time was needed to study the changes.
Kateryna Tymoshenko, 39, brought her two children to an Oct. 17 rally demanding the resignation of Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko. Civic groups, activists and veterans organized the protest, accusing city authorities of poor winter preparation, a shortage of shelters, corruption and misuse of budget funds. Klitschko has called the criticism and the rally part of a campaign to discredit him.
“His direct call was to leave. … I don’t have the money to leave,” Tymoshenko said in response to the mayor’s call earlier in October.
She considered moving to central or western Ukraine, but high demand has driven up prices, and she could not find affordable housing. Her husband is also at the front, so the winter preparations fell on her shoulders.
“I expect it to be worse than it was, precisely because of the psychological state,” she said. “I hope there will at least be heating and sewage.” Otherwise, she said, even people like her ready for harsh conditions would consider leaving.
Tymoshenko has power banks, and the family has already moved to a first-floor apartment.
“Everything depends on our partners,” she said. “Despite the resilience of our people, I am ready to endure for as long as possible. But we have no money, we have no weapons, we have no Patriots (anti-missile batteries). So we are forced to explain, to beg, to plead.”
“Well, this is the life we have,” she said. “We didn’t choose it.”
A photo strip of Kateryna Tsvihun, 41, and her husband, Serhii Yermolenko, is displayed on a shelf in their apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Kateryna Tsvihun, 41, gathers children's clothes in her apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Andrii Tymoshenko, left, and Polina Tymoshenko stack wooden blocks on the floor by the light of Polina's headlamp during a blackout caused by Russian strikes on energy infrastructure in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Kateryna Tymoshenko, 39, with her son Andrii walk towards a Dnipro river in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Matvii Yermolenko, 2, sits in an open suitcase as his mother, Kateryna Tsvihun, 41, gathers children's clothes in their apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
