Rodolfo was 30 years old and had a job that seemed like a way out.
He lives (lived) in Chile, and in May 2026 he saw an offer on TikTok that sounded too good to be true: paid travel, accommodation, food, and a bonus of more than 25.000 dollars. They told him he would go to Russia to take a course to become a military police officer. He said goodbye to his family and flew out.
On June 3, he signed a document that, as the Russian Defense Ministry itself confirmed, was not a course: it was a military service contract in Russia’s Armed Forces. As of July 1, he was assigned to a unit in the Moscow Military District. His father, Juan Chico Alarcón, has not heard anything from him since June and says that the Foreign Ministry and the consulate in Moscow have not given him clear answers.
Three months of silence, a contract signed without fully knowing what it was, and a family in Chile waiting for a call that never comes.
