When Sri Lanka’s economy crashed in 2022, people sought work abroad wherever they could find it – including ex-soldiers who joined forces fighting in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.
The veterans – some of whom swapped their life savings for what they thought would be lucrative, non-combat jobs – are desperate to return home.
Their families have been pressing local authorities to help bring them back.
The government says around a dozen Sri Lankans are also being held as prisoners of war in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has taken a heavy toll on Russian troops, and Moscow has been on a global quest for more forces to fight.
Sri Lanka has maintained a large military relative to its population of 22 million since the end of a decades-long civil war against the separatist Tamil Tigers in 2009.
Moscow is believed to have hired thousands of foreign combatants, many of them from South Asia.
