Ramaya Anjarana, a 29-year-old Indian steel fitter, died in May during a Ukrainian attack on a Moscow oil refinery. He moved to Russia for construction work to pay off family debt. Many Indian laborers got caught in the cross hairs as Ukraine used drones to strike targets across the country.
Showkat Nanda reported from Srinagar, Kashmir, Valerie Hopkins from Sofino, Russia, and Paul Sonne from Berlin.
When Ramaya Anjarana, a 29-year-old steel fitter from India, decided to go to Russia for a job in construction, he wasn't particularly worried that the country was at war.
His brother had worked there and assured him that everything seemed safe and normal. The wages, more than double what he could make back home, would help pay down debt that his family had taken on for a house and weddings. And thousands of Indians were going to Russia, part of a broader wave of workers drawn by a labor shortage.
But then Russia's war in Ukraine hit home for him.
In May, Mr. Anjarana was killed during a Ukrainian attack on the oil refinery in southern Moscow where he was employed, according to Vasudev Reddy, the chief executive of Mycon Engineering, the Indian staffing firm that recruited Mr. Anjarana for the job. As workers gathered near the entrance after their shift, a blast threw Mr. Anjarana backward, causing a fatal head injury, Mr. Reddy said. A number of Indian laborers were injured.
They and many other foreigners have ended up in the cross hairs as Ukraine has used its growing arsenal of drones and missiles to strike Russia's oil refineries and e-commerce warehouses, sometimes hitting targets thousands of miles from the front.
Ukraine, under pressure from President Trump, has not struck refineries for the past two days but has said it will agree to an extended cease-fire only if Russia stops attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
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