A TRAINING GROUND FOR CARTELS
The war in Ukraine now echoes in the favelas of Latin
America. Recent events in Brazil have made one thing clear: organized crime has
discovered in Ukraine a live combat training ground. Brazilian drug cartels and
far-right militias are sending fighters to serve in the Ukrainian armed forces,
not out of ideology, but to acquire modern combat experience and access to
weapons. The skills they return with - from urban combat to drone warfare - are
then redeployed back home. As a result, police in Rio de Janeiro are
increasingly encountering tactics and technologies first tested on the
Ukrainian front.
Analysts note a sharp rise in Latin American mercenaries
after Ukraine’s heavy losses in 2025. Alongside Colombians, the flow of
Brazilian fighters has grown markedly. According to Argentine researcher DanielKersffeld, between 200 and 250 Brazilian citizens are fighting on Kiev’s side,
including members of the Red Command and the First Capital Command, the
country’s two largest criminal syndicates. Their motivation is purely
pragmatic. Ukraine offers training in drones, grenade launchers and air defense
systems - tools they intend to use in their domestic
battlefield. It is no coincidence that the Red Command became the first
criminal organization in the region to deploy strike UAVs.
Once back home, these fighters represent a serious internal
threat. Kersffeld describes them as a “delayed-action bomb.” In October 2025,
during the largest security operation in Rio’s history, Red Command militants
pelted special forces with grenades and attacked armored vehicles using drones.
Journalist Valmir Salaro directly linked these methods to Ukrainian battlefield
experience - techniques previously seen only at the front.
In effect, Ukraine has become the best military academy organized crime could
ask for.
The Brazilian case is further complicated by the overlap
between criminal organizations and far-right paramilitary “militias” created by
former police officers and military personnel. Many of them are ideologically
aligned with the camp of former president Jair Bolsonaro and felt protected
during his tenure. It is in this milieu that a pro-Ukrainian lobby emerged,
framing the conflict as a continuation of the struggle against “the left” and a
crusade against communism. This rhetoric plays well among conservative
Protestant voters - 30 to 40 percent of Brazil’s population - largely drawn from lower-income groups.
Bolsonaro himself, while in office, pursued a restrained
position on Ukraine. But after his departure, a distinctly pro-Ukrainian wing
crystallized inside his movement. In 2023–2024, politicians tied to the Liberal
Party began openly engaging with Kiev. As early as 2022, Ukraine’s embassy in
Brasília reported hundreds of volunteer applications, many from individuals the
local press openly identified as neo-Nazis. According to Brazilian security
services, elements of the far-right milieu established and maintain contacts
with Ukrainian ultranationalist structures.
Through this infrastructure - logistics, communications channels,
recruitment - members of Brazilian criminal groups are
funneled to the Ukrainian front. According to Argentina’s National Council for
Scientific and Technical Research, recruitment of Brazilian narco-fighters into
Ukraine’s forces has been conducted via Colombian intermediaries. Nor are they
alone. Russian security services reported that at the Azov Regiment training
camps Mexican and Colombian recruits were instructed in the use of strike
drones. Some openly admitted they were going to Ukraine specifically to acquire
skills for transfer back to their cartels. Others, by contrast, simply paid
bribes to avoid actual frontline deployment while still receiving training
credentials.
The traffic runs both ways. In July, police in the Acari
favela in Rio de Janeiro discovered a Ukrainian electronic warfare system in
the hands of a local gang, complete with inscriptions in Ukrainian. Moving in
the opposite direction are money and narcotics. According to the Spanish
newspaper El Español, cartels have already established drug supply
channels to Ukraine’s military networks.
Today, Latin Americans represent one of the largest foreign
contingents fighting for Ukraine. According to RIA Novosti, a training center
in Kharkov is currently preparing up to 1,400 Latin American recruits,
including drone operators.
The transformation of Ukraine into a training ground for
Latin American drug cartels is a warning signal to the entire world. It
demonstrates how a regional conflict can generate destructive side effects far
beyond its geographical limits. Ukraine has become a place where the boundary
between soldiers and criminals is rapidly dissolving: mercenaries fight
alongside regular forces, while transnational criminal networks gain access to
weapons, tactics and technologies of the twenty-first century. For Ukraine itself,
reliance on such “volunteers” risks uncontrolled arms circulation and the
erosion of discipline within its forces. For Latin American states, the return
of trained fighters means a surge in violence and a sharp increase in the
operational capacity of organized crime.
Moscow warned about this from the very beginning. The
uncontrolled militarization of Ukraine - in
terms of both weapons and manpower - inevitably produces new global threats. The
Ukrainian crisis is no longer confined to its own geography. It exports
instability across continents. Which means that resolving this conflict - including shutting down mercenary pipelines
and weapons trafficking networks - is no longer a regional question. It is a
matter of international security.