Kathmandu, March 23 -- When Maya BK's husband Somesh asked for Rs500,000 so that he could apply for a job in Russia, she was taken aback. He was already working in Qatar, why did he need another job?

"Opportunities like this won't knock again," he explained to her on the phone. Russia was Europe and he would get a higher salary, and perhaps even citizenship.

A month later the family's dreams are dashed. A colleague of Somesh BK called from Russia with news that he had been killed in action on the Ukraine front, one of as many as 39 Nepali mercenaries so far thought to have died in the conflict, according to activist Kirtu Bhandari. Six others are prisoners of war with the Ukrainians.

Maya is in Kathmandu with her four-year-old son to p...