The Oldham Antiques Dealer Fueling Putin’s War Machine

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As Russia’s foreign recruits rush to get in formation and prepare for another grueling day of drills, a distinct English accent cuts through the military training base. The latest intake of mercenaries from Africa has been recruited to bolster Moscow’s war machine and replenish its ranks after staggering losses in Ukraine.

Dressed in camouflage fatigues, the foreign fighters aged anywhere between 20 and 50 find themselves crammed on to wooden benches inside a makeshift briefing room where they are put through a crash course in modern warfare. And the man preparing them for the Russian meat grinder by drilling them on infantry tactics? A British commander who goes by the name of Ben Stimson.

The self-proclaimed Russian loyalist was put in charge of training the recruits by Moscow last year. He teaches them how to handle weapons, navigate dense forest terrain and administer basic first aid, and has witnessed hundreds of foreign mercenaries go through the recruitment pipeline.

“I worked extensively with foreign volunteers during my contract in the Russian army, in particular with African volunteers,” Stimson, 50, told the Daily Mail in a rare interview, offering an insight into his role for the first time. “The training is intensive. It’s just combat training. Each man knew what his job was and what he had to do.”

So how does a former antiques dealer from Oldham find himself in the position of a trusted commander in Moscow’s barbaric war against Ukraine?

Stimson’s infatuation with Vladimir Putin’s Russia began in 2015 when his business selling jewellery and ceramics was struggling. He spent an increasing amount of time online and with his ‘socialist world view’ made contact with a Russian group called Interbrigades – a foreign volunteer movement – where he was told about the ‘persecution of ethnic Russians’ in the Donbas. He was quickly recruited to join pro-Russian militia forces through the group’s network which organised his deployment and he made his way to the region in August that year.

After just three months – in which he complained about a lack of weapons, food and no pay – he returned to Britain, only to be arrested on arrival at Manchester airport, and convicted of terror offences. Stimson spent nearly seven years in prison. On release he claimed he wanted to turn his life around in Oldham and rebuild community ties. He moved in with his father Martin, a former local councillor, and attempted to restart his antiques business. But it never took off, he insisted, because he faced constant scrutiny as a convicted terrorist.

In February 2024, he decided to go back to Moscow where he signed a professional military contract with the Russian army and picked up arms against Ukraine. “My anti-NATO politics and socialist world views meant I couldn’t have had a life in Britain,” said Stimson, who completed his training and was transferred into a special military operations zone, first as an engineer where he would work to fix power generators.

He was not on the frontline, however. “I was nowhere near the red zone,” he said. “I was on the third line and have never once fired a weapon at anyone knowingly.” It was in this regiment that he began translating orders barked out by Russian commanders to fellow foreign recruits. His superiors were so impressed they later handed him responsibility for training them himself.

“I’m very well liked in the Russian army and respected,” Stimson said. “All my reports are good. I’m good at managing people.”

Away from the rifle drills and battlefield exercises, Stimson appeared keen to document life at the Russian military base. One photograph shows him grinning alongside a group of his African trainees outside a maze of camouflage netting and military tents.

I showed the photograph to an African mercenary who had been captured and was held at a prisoner of war camp in Ukraine. Two of those in the crowd of trainees were his friends – he had known them in Moscow before heading for the frontline.

Christian Ilunga*, 31, from Kinshasa in Congo, said: “We used to spend time in the same social circles in Moscow – at cafes, restaurants and bars around the city. I would see them absolutely everywhere and we would chat like friends. They are from Mozambique and really good guys.”

Asked what he thinks happened to the pair trained by Stimson, he said: “They are likely dead. It’s a harsh reality but if they are not here [Lviv prison] then that means they did not survive. I am not surprised because the training offered by Russia is not enough. For people who have never been in combat before they are being sent in blind.”

Already living in Russia after completing his studies, Ilunga was drawn by the promise of a lucrative salary and a hefty signing-up bonus to support his family back home. He voluntarily enlisted to fight in February this year. He believed he could serve out his one-year contract and leave as a wealthy man, relying on experience he had gained in the Congolese military.

Instead, he was met with a brutal reality. He was forced to take part in three failed assaults in the Donbas before being captured by Ukrainian forces after just two weeks on the frontline. “It was obvious we were being treated like shields, but it is war and there is nothing you can do but follow orders from the commanders,” Ilunga said. He was wounded when a grenade exploded beside him, tearing into his hand. Moments later, exhausted and injured, he surrendered to Ukrainian forces who treated him and took him to their base to be processed as a PoW.

He was eventually taken to a camp in Lviv, close to the border with Poland, where he has been for the past two months. Ilunga is being held in prison with mercenaries from all over Africa, the kind of foreign fighters that Stimson trained.

Among them is Willy Macharia, 23, from Kenya who says he was tricked into fighting after moving to Russia in July 2025 to become a driver.

His parents paid an agency in the Kenyan capital Nairobi £370 to facilitate the move to Moscow in order to change his family’s life. But once he arrived and signed his employment contract, he found himself pulling up at a military base after a seven-hour car journey. A few days later he was taken to a training base where he picked up a weapon for the first time.

Macharia added: “I was not scared but I knew what was ahead of me. It is easy for you to die here so I entered into survival mode.” He trained for just three weeks before being deployed to the frontline, although he refused to disclose his specific role in the Russian military. “I saw the dead bodies of lots of Russian soldiers,” Macharia said. “I was scared because they were everywhere. I was praying that I would make it back alive.”

Three months after arriving, he was with four Russian soldiers when they heard a whirring sound around them. They were surrounded by drones. Macharia ran for his life, scrambling for cover wherever he could, but was easily spotted by a drone. Moments later, a grenade was fired at him, striking his leg. “I felt the impact immediately, but I didn’t realise I was injured until I tried to run away again,” he said. “I looked down at my trousers and it was filled with blood. Luckily no shrapnel hit my leg but it was very painful.”

He lay bleeding beneath a tree, and within ten minutes was approached by Ukrainian soldiers. An increasing number of Russian mercenaries are now openly admitting they enlisted in the war by choice.

Kehinde Oluwagbemileke, 30, arrived in Moscow from Lagos, Nigeria, to study population and development at university, later settling in the city and acquiring Russian citizenship. In January 2025, he claims he went to a military office and signed a one-year contract to be part of the war against Ukraine. “I signed up as a national duty,” he declared. “My ideology lined up with Russia.”

The Nigerian spent six months on the frontline before one morning, he and his fellow soldiers were surrounded by Ukrainian drones in Zaporizhzhia. “As soon as I heard it, I knew what was coming,” Oluwagbemileke said. “I was not afraid to die but I was prepared.” A grenade suddenly dropped and exploded, with shrapnel tearing into his leg, breaking his collarbone and badly damaging his kneecap. He spent seven days hiding before being captured by Ukrainian troops.

Oluwagbemileke was taken as a PoW and transferred to Lviv, where he has been held for almost a year. When informed that Russia has refused to take back any of its mercenaries in prisoner swap deals, he hit back. “We are not foreign fighters,” he said. “I’m a Russian soldier. There are black guys fighting for the French army, are they African mercenaries?”

Russia’s recruitment network has also stretched as far as Turkey, with the Daily Mail identifying the first fighter from the NATO country to make the journey. Mehmet Gulbay was struggling to make ends meet as a freight driver in Ankara. Gulbay, 36, saw a post on X advertising lucrative military contracts in Russia and flew there in October before signing his military contract in Nizhny Novgorod, where he was handed £8,000 up front and promised a further £2,000 a month – more than twice the average monthly salary in Turkey. He underwent military training for 15 days before he was sent into battle. Only a few weeks later, his regiment came under attack and he was captured.

Stimson categorically denied that any mercenaries had been tricked into fighting and claimed they all knew “exactly why they are there.” “The notion that foreign volunteers are being lied to or somehow tricked into signing contracts with the Russian army is laughable,” he said. He also denies being a recruiter for the Russian regime but admits he has helped at least ten foreign fighters join the war.

Stimson was granted Russian citizenship in February for his role in the conflict and will soon be signing another military contract after his previous one ended. Loyalist pro-Kremlin MP Maria Butina confirmed that the main pro-Putin political party United Russia had backed granting him citizenship. She said: “Ben has already proven his love and loyalty to Russia, his empathy for the residents of the new territories.”

Stimson added: “I was so proud. I’ve sworn allegiance to Russia. But I still class myself as British and there are things I miss from home like the food and the football.” He said there were more Britons fighting for Russia than is known, although refused to say how many.

Several African countries including Kenya and Nigeria have banned their citizens from fighting for Russia and warned them not to join the war after the Mail was among the first to report on the issue. But Moscow continues to expand the recruitment of foreign nationals into its armed forces because of the heavy losses it is suffering.

More than 28,000 mercenaries from 128 countries – including North Korea, Cuba and Egypt – have signed up to fight against Ukraine. And Russia plans to recruit at least 18,500 more by the end of the year, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

Vitalii Matvienko, of Ukraine’s I Want To Live project – which encourages Russian fighters to surrender – said: “Back when our country was still occupied by the Soviet Union, people from Western countries who openly supported authoritarian regimes were often referred to as ‘useful idiots’. Like other high-profile foreign supporters of Russia, Ben Stimson’s primary value lies in propaganda: Helping create the illusion that Putin’s regime enjoys understanding and support around the world.”

*Christian Ilunga is a pseudonym used over fear of reprisals from Russia.