He didn’t have any documents. He was wrapped in bandages and 2,500 miles from his village in the Himalayas. But as he lay in a Russian military hospital, wounded in battle and surrounded by people speaking an alien language, Krishna Bahadur Shahi, an out-of-work engineer from Nepal who had committed the mistake of joining Moscow’s army, made a vow. “I had to get out,” he said in a recent interview. But the Russian military continues to rely on it, boosting combat power with impoverished young foreigners even though many, like Mr. Shahi, said they didn’t know they would be going into battle.

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Persons: Krishna Bahadur Shahi, I’m, “, ”, Mr, Shahi Locations: Russian, Nepal, Ukraine