More than 1,400 citizens from 36 African nations are reportedly fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, Kyiv's foreign minister revealed on Friday.

Ukrainian officials claim Russia is actively seeking to augment its invading army by recruiting individuals from various countries, often employing deceptive tactics.

Andriy Sybiha warned that Russia is luring Africans into contracts he described as "equivalent to ... a death sentence," urging African governments to issue warnings to their populations.

"Foreign citizens in the Russian army have a sad fate," he wrote on X. "Most of them are immediately sent to the so-called 'meat assaults', where they are quickly killed."

South Africa said on Thursday it would investigate how 17 of its citizens joined mercenary forces after the men sent distress calls for help to return home.

He said Ukraine would provide more specific information about the countries and regions from which Russia has recruited troops.

Earlier this year the British defence ministry claimed that some 6,000 North Korean soldiers died fighting against Ukraine, accounting for over half of the 11,000 troops initially sent to Kursk.

North Korea and Russia are strategic allies. The East Asian nation supplied caches of weapons as well as some 15,000 troops, according to South Korean estimates, to aid the Russian war effort against Ukraine. The Koreans mainly fought in Kursk, successfully beating back a Ukrainian invasion of the Russian border region.

Last month North Korea started constructing a memorial for its soldiers who died fighting for Russia.

Attending the groundbreaking ceremony in Pyongyang, leader Kim Jong Un declared the new memorial a great symbol of North Korea’s ties with its neighbour which were “forged at the cost of blood” and passed the “strictest test for their solidity”. (The Independent UK, but headline rejigged)