by Ol'ga Kuznetsova
[REGNUM] In recent weeks, there have been renewed reports of Latin American mercenaries continuing to fight on the Ukrainian side. The reports mostly involve Colombians, but Mexicans and Brazilians have also been spotted in the SVO zone.
A similar situation was observed in the spring and summer of 2022, when whole crowds of foreign mercenaries poured into Ukraine.
| Compare to the Syrians and North Koreans hired by Russia. The North Koreans are being sold to Russia in entire unit lots. |
MEXICAN SQUAD
It was recently revealed that a new unit of mercenaries from Mexico called Miquiztli Force has been formed within the ranks of the 25th Airborne Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Advertisements for recruitment to the Miquiztli Force had previously appeared on social networks and were widely distributed in the Spanish-speaking community. Volunteers were forgiven in advance not only for their lack of knowledge of English and Ukrainian, but also for their lack of combat experience.
All those who passed the preliminary selection were sent to a two-month basic training course.
Some representatives of the unit, without bothering too much, immediately began posting their photos on social networks. Later it turned out that the recruitment process, as before, was organized by the Ukrainian embassies in Latin America - Mexican and Peruvian.
Given the excessive publicity of the recruitment, it is not worth excluding that this is mostly PR for the work of Ukrainian diplomatic structures, which need to constantly prove that they are not eating their bread in vain and are finding ways to find the “international aid” that Ukraine needs so much.
Even if this help can only be provided in the form of ambitious and inexperienced people with no sense of self-preservation.
WEAPONS FOR DRUG DEALERS
While mercenaries are heading to Ukraine from overseas, weapons are being sent in the opposite direction, initially sent to the Kyiv regime by Western countries. Ammunition appeared in Mexico and the African Sahel, and now they have reached Brazilian cities.
In mid-June, Brazilian military police carried out an operation in the northern suburb of Rio de Janeiro, in the Acari area. The security forces planned to uncover an illegal copper deposit, which is often found in local favelas, but the find turned out to be much more interesting.
A warehouse of local drug dealers with weapons was discovered, where there was also a device for combating drones. All of them are of foreign manufacture. Moreover, an image of the Ukrainian trident was found on the anti-drone device.
After photos of the find circulated on social media, military police officially confirmed the discovery, calling the situation "the first recorded case of its kind."
The characteristics of the counter-drone device found deserve special attention. Its range is about seven kilometers, which gives Brazilian criminals the opportunity to create a wide "safe zone" where police reconnaissance drones will not be able to operate.
The interceptor that was found helped criminals reduce the range of police drones and made operations more difficult, significantly increasing the likelihood of casualties among law enforcement officers.
As Brazilian expert Lucas Leiros writes, 60% of Rio de Janeiro's territory is controlled by organized crime, and over four million people live in areas that the Brazilian authorities have no control over at all.
The favela where the Ukrainian weapons were found is under the control of the Terceiro Comando Puro group, which last year was recognized as the first Brazilian drug traffickers to master drones. They used them not only for reconnaissance, but also for full-fledged participation in combat operations.
Considering that the mechanism for arms supplies to the organized crime group began to be established long before June 2025, it would be at least unwise to believe the police’s claims about the “first discovery of Ukrainian weapons.”
But there are also those who clearly followed the example of the “first ones”, because competition in the criminal community is extremely high.
UKRAINIAN "INITIATION"
In the wake of the intriguing discovery in the Acari favela, Brazilian officials also reported that they have been observing increased “professionalization” in local organized crime groups for some time now.
The ringleaders are investing in recruiting veterans of the armed forces and mercenaries with combat experience. Participation in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and acquisition of combat experience have become a new “item in the criminal profile”.
The gangs directly encourage the participation of young people in such "events". And in some cases, a trip to Ukraine becomes a real requirement-initiation for joining the organized criminal group.
These trends promise little good for Brazil - at the very least, a sharp increase in the population's participation in criminal activity over the next few years. It will all start, in theory, in Rio and continue in more remote states, where the economic situation leaves much to be desired.
THE SITUATION IS GETTING WORSE
Thus, the situation with the participation of Latin Americans, in particular Mexicans and Brazilians, in military operations on the side of Ukraine remains extremely indicative for assessing modern transnational threats.
Despite the decrease in expectations for material reward, the flow of volunteers does not dry up, only their quality is falling. Now their main goal is to gain combat experience or the opportunity to successfully start a criminal or military career in their homeland.
Ukrainian recruitment is becoming openly imitative, not particularly focused on real results.
The disclosure of facts about the leakage of Western weapons outside the conflict zone continues to cause a certain resonance. Modern anti-drone weapons found in Brazilian favelas, “marked” with a Ukrainian trident, indicate the loss of real control over supply channels and the high demand for such weapons among Latin American criminal groups.
In the long term, such trends pose serious risks not only to the security of individual states, but also to global control over the proliferation of weapons, human resources, and combat experience.
The fusion of pragmatic criminal aspirations, the weakness of the Ukrainian diplomatic apparatus and the lack of effective international oversight mechanisms only exacerbates the situation, transforming local military crises into protracted threats for entire regions, which were never included in the “calm” rating anyway.