The last time Norma saw her son was in late January, when she dropped him off at an airport in Peru’s capital, Lima. He told her he found a job as a cook for the Russian army advertised on social media, assuring her he’d be far from the war in Ukraine, make good money and even have a shot at obtaining Russian citizenship.
Norma was instantly suspicious. Her 31-year-old son had never left Peru before and had never even held a weapon. (CNN is not publishing Norma’s full name or that of her son to protect both from retaliation.)
“I wanted to lock him in the house, but he had made up his mind already,” Norma told CNN. She considered even calling the police. “He told me ‘Mom, please, understand, I am just going as a cook.’ But a mother’s heart knows, if not I wouldn’t have felt so anxious.”
When she dropped him off at the airport, Norma saw there were others waiting to fly to Russia, too. She tried questioning them, but they refused to speak with her.
“My son asked me not to embarrass him, that I had to believe in him, that he was just going to work as a cook,” she said. “He left me heartbroken. Something told me that there was something wrong. I said goodbye, and that was the last time I saw him.”
