✂️.
I think it's nothing new here. Already in first year of war we saw people mainly from Nepal, some African countries fighting for Russia.
I don't think Russia is hiring them because they're running out of people. It's more just a way to get some cheap meat. And now it doesn't looks that number of such mercenaries is very significant.
Well, the report I saw on the Cuban people going to Russia to fight for Putin was talking about four hundred civilians who became military units in the front, that is indeed quite an small number of soldiers, which is unlikely to make a difference on the result of battles by its own, so I am not sure what is the objective of this recruitment campaign. It could be about slowly recruiting foreigners, so Putin would not need to gather his own population and levy for more native Russians to go fight in the front.
I am not sure I would call these people to be used as "cheap meat" as you call them, if the numbers of their salaries and the possibility on getting Russian citizenship are not unfunded, then they are being paid very good salaries, considering they come from a third world country like Cuba. I am not informed on those citizens from Nepal and African countries though, It makes sense something like that could be happening.
In Russia, against the background of a colossal redundancy of any resources, there is a shortage of manpower. The point is not even in the losses at the front (although of course there are those too), and not in the wave of emigration after the start of the special operation (although of course there was that too), but rather in the demographic failure, which is a consequence of the acute crisis of the 1990s after the collapse of the USSR. The current unemployment rate of 2.7% is an unprecedented low in Russia.
Actually, therefore, it is not surprising that Russia offers foreigners from Africa and Latin America favorable conditions and a simplified scheme for obtaining citizenship through a contract with the Ministry of Defense. I think this program will expand.