The student was a 23-year-old student the Zambian government had sponsored to study nuclear engineering at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute.

The man was identified as Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda by Zambia’s Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo in a statement.

Nyirenda was convicted in 2020 of unspecified crimes in Russia and sent to prison for nine years and six months. He was serving his sentence at the Tyer Medium Security Prison on the outskirts of Moscow,” according to the statement.

The Zambian foreign ministry said it was informed of his death “on 9th November, 2022… at the battlefront of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”

The ministry said it had urgent questions for Moscow about how the Zambian ended up fighting for Moscow.

“In view of this very sad development, the Zambian Government has requested the Russian authorities to urgently provide information on the circumstances under which a Zambian citizen, serving a prison sentence in Moscow, could have been recruited to fight in Ukraine and subsequently lose his life.” Continue Reading