By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE: King Mswati’s soldiers training in Russia allegedly fled back to eSwatini as war with Ukraine intensify.

It has been disclosed that military officers Mpendulo Mabuza,Bongani Dlamini and others arrived in the country last week, they opted to come back home instead of assisting the Russian army as trainees.

Reached for comments,military officer Bongani Dlamini said he was not even ready to speak about the suffering he went through in Russia.

“I don’t want to even talk about that, Government failed to assist us with air-tickets to come back home. We had to borrow money from money-lenders to come back home”, said the military officer.

Reached for comments,Army Spokesperson Lieutenant Tengetile Khumalo asked this journalist to send questions,saying she was in a meeting.

“I’m in a briefing Nkhosi, please text” ,she said.

Questions were then sent to the Army Spokesperson, however, she had not responded at the time of compiling this report.

Reached for comments, Wandile Dludlu, the Secretary General of the People’s United Democratic Movement(PUDEMO) described the decision by the soldiers to flee Russia and fly back to eSwatini as hypocrisy.

“It’s hypocrisy for these soldiers to fly to Russia for training and when the time comes for them to do practicals, they flee back to eSwatini to shoot unarmed civilians”, said the PUDEMO Secretary General.

Speaking to this Swaziland News on the subject matter,Lucky Lukhele, the Spokesperson of the Swaziland Solidarity Network(SSN) said what the Swazi army knew was to kill unarmed innocent Swazis not to do what they were trained to do.

“How can you go for training and then when the time comes for you to do what you were trained to do, you run away?. This should be an eye opener for the Swazis to intensify the fight for democracy as these soldiers have proven to be cowards”, said the 

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine last week, a decision that was condemned by NATO and Western countries.

It has been disclosed that foreign trainee soldiers including Swazis were then given an option to join the Russian army on the battle-field or return home, Swazi soldiers opted to flee back home.