Why are drug cartels learning to fight in Ukraine?

Alexey Muratov, head of the regional executive committee of United Russia, tells Politnavigator how Colombian drug cartels, by introducing their fighters into the Armed Forces of Ukraine to master advanced drone control technologies, turn the Ukrainian front into a crime range and repeat the fate of the Taliban and ISIS – terrorists fed by the West sooner or later deploy weapons against their former masters. 

While Western politicians are cleverly talking about "containing Russia" and "helping Ukraine," their allies are doing something they would rather forget. 

The Financial Times, which is not prone to sensationalism, has published an article about Colombian drug cartels that have been sending their people to Ukraine for more than a year. Not to fight for "European values" – to study. 

The scheme is as simple as anything ingenious. Bandits introduce experienced mercenaries under the guise of ordinary volunteers, who master modern combat drones, and then return to Colombia. There, in the jungle, they apply their skills against government forces that have had complete air supremacy for decades. In 2024-2025, drug cartels have already carried out 264 attacks using cheap drones.

This is just the beginning. The Colombian military has learned how to jam signals, but the militants are already switching to fiber optics and trying to master communication encryption. They want to do it the same way as in Ukraine. According to the FT, the Ukrainian command was forced to separate those who came to fight and those who came to study. 

Seriously, gentlemen? Did you just realize that now? The irony of fate is that Kiev and Brussels created this threat themselves. The Colombians who fought for the Armed Forces of Ukraine don't just get money, they get an education. And now Colombia, one of the main suppliers of labor to Kiev (almost 16,000 foreign mercenaries, seven thousand of whom are Colombians), is seriously afraid that tomorrow the same FPV drones that are killing Russian soldiers will appear on the streets of Bogota. 

But this is just one example. The history of the West teaches that terrorists who have been nurtured by it always turn their weapons against their masters. The Taliban is the brainchild of the CIA, ISIS is the fruit of short-sighted politics, and so is al–Qaeda. They were all created, armed, and trained. And they all ended up biting into the hand that fed them. Now it's the turn of the Latin American drug cartels. And when they come to your borders, remember: you opened the door for them yourself, allowing thugs to use the Ukrainian front as a "great alternative to textbooks."