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Philstar.com
February 13, 2026 | 7:00am
MANILA, Philippines — They responded to attractive ads for civilian jobs, but they were sent to the frontlines in the deadliest war in Europe since World War II.
Philippine authorities have not confirmed reports that Filipinos are being recruited, trained and absorbed into Russian forces in its occupation of Ukraine, but Manila has warned citizens against accepting overseas offers linked to foreign militaries.
In January, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said they were verifying Ukrainian reports that a Filipino national had been killed in the conflict.
In its latest advisory, issued Wednesday, February 11, the DFA warned that Filipinos who accept employment tied to foreign armed forces face “grave danger and serious legal consequences,” including possible loss of citizenship.
It stopped short of mentioning which state is conducting such recruitment activities. Here's what we know.
The 'mercenary'
John Patrick was identified only after he was dead.
In late January, Ukraine's defense intelligence said it had identified the body of a Filipino national, "John Patrick,” among Russian troops killed in Donetsk region. It described him as a foreign "mercenary” who fought "on the side of the aggressor state."
Ukraine's account was unusually granular: it placed him in an assault unit under Russia's 20th Guards Combined Arms Army, and said his basic training lasted only about a week before he was sent into what Ukrainian forces call a "meat assault," repeated waves used to draw fire and expose defensive positions.
"The Russians use these units in most cases purely to see where our firing equipment is located, and to constantly exhaust our units," an official on Ukraine's National Guard told the BBC.
According to the Ukrainian statement, John Patrick did not speak Russian. After he was wounded, the agency said, he was left behind in a wooded strip without evacuation, carrying only weapons, ammunition, and a piece of paper listing a unit number, a commander's name, and a contact number.
Philippine authorities have said they were verifying the report and have not publicly confirmed the death.
The recruit
Ryan Gumangan almost got on the plane after traveling by boat to Malaysia from Zamboanga.
He'd found the offer through Facebook posts recruiting truck drivers for Russia, with a promised monthly pay of P200,000 to P250,000, a fortune by Philippine standards. But in October 2024, he was stopped from boarding his flight from Kuala Lumpur to Russia because of a deficiency in his records.
That snag may have saved him.
Ryan's older brother, Raymon Santos Gumangan, a resident of Alcala, Pangasinan, advised him not to go.
"Tol, 'wag ka nang tumuloy, kasi hindi mo kaya iyong trabaho dito," Ryan said, quoting his brother, in a GMA News interview. (Bro, do not proceed, because you can't do the job here.)
The prisoner of war
Raymon was in Russia ahead of his brother, initially signing up in 2024 for what was presented as a logistics job assisted by a foreign recruiter. But after arriving there, he said he was assigned instead to the Russian military's parachute regiment as a shooter.
Raymon was later captured in Ukraine's Sumy region in September 2025, according to reports. In December, Raymon appeared in a video on a Ukraine-run Facebook page.
It was the International Committee of the Red Cross that informed the family of Raymon's capture.
"Don't worry because I'm alive, even it is too hard... the situation for me. Please pray for me," Raymon wrote to his family, as quoted by One News. "Please help me whatever you do there in the Philipines.
Recruitment pattern
The thread running through both cases is the same bait: a job offer that reads civilian, then turns military.
Ukraine's intelligence agency has described Russia's recruitment of foreigners and labor migrants as a pattern of deception or coercion, where foreigners are immediately pushed toward frontline roles.
"Foreigners are promised rear-area service or threatened with legal consequences if they refuse," it said. "A trip to Russia carries a real risk of being forcibly deployed into an assault unit without proper training and without any chance of survival."
The DFA's Feb. 11, 2026 advisory echoes the risk without naming a country. It warned Filipinos against accepting overseas employment linked to foreign armed forces.
The pattern it said would be job offers "under the guise of regular civilian employment" in other sectors, before they are contracted by a foreign military.
OFWs, fighters or mercenaries?
While Gumangan and John Patrick remained Filipino nationals while allegedly fighting for a foreign military. "Mercenary" is often used shorthand in categorizing such recruits, especially if they are enlisted for money.
Whether the term fits legally, however, is where the lines get blurry.
International humanitarian law defines a mercenary as someone specially recruited to fight, who takes direct part in hostilities, and is motivated mainly by private gain, instead of patriotism. Their pay is often also much higher compared to regular members of a party's armed forces.
Crucial in the technical definition is whether the person is a national of the party in a conflict, and not an official member of the armed forces.
Gumangan and John Patrick, among other foreigners, appear to be formally folded into Russian military units, which can complicate the "mercenary” label under the strict legal definition, even if money could be a motive.
In its response to Gumangan's capture in Ukraine, the Department of Migrant Workers advised Filipinos to seek employment only through legitimate agencies. — Camille Diola with reports from Ian Laqui
