Colombian Militias Send Personnel to Ukraine to Gain Valuable Drone Warfare Experience

Illegal armed groups in Colombia have reportedly been sending combat personnel to Ukraine to acquire battlefield experience with drones, potentially allowing them to return home with knowledge that could be used against local security forces. The development highlights how lessons from the ongoing conflict are increasingly spreading beyond conventional militaries and into conflicts involving guerrilla and criminal organisations. According to reporting by the Financial Times, Colombian soldiers, former military personnel and former combatants have travelled to Ukraine to fight alongside Ukrainian forces, with some allegedly being encouraged or recruited by Colombian criminal organisations seeking to acquire expertise in modern drone warfare. 

The most important area of interest is reportedly the use of first-person-view (FPV) drones. The Russo-Ukrainian War has transformed relatively inexpensive commercial drones into important battlefield weapons, with both sides employing them for reconnaissance, artillery spotting and direct attacks against personnel and vehicles. Ukrainian forces have developed particularly sophisticated methods for integrating drones into small-unit operations, while operators have accumulated extensive combat experience under conditions of electronic warfare and persistent aerial surveillance. For Colombia’s armed forces, the prospect of criminal and insurgent groups acquiring this expertise presents a particularly serious challenge. 

Paramilitary groups operating in Colombia have already demonstrated an increasing ability to employ drones against government forces. Between 2024 and 2025, Colombian authorities attributed 264 drone attacks to illegal armed groups, with several resulting in deaths. The significance of the Ukrainian experience extends beyond simply learning to operate a drone. Combat-proven operators can acquire practical knowledge concerning the selection of targets, coordination between multiple drones, adaptation to electronic warfare, concealment of launch positions and the use of drones in environments where conventional aircraft cannot operate safely. Such expertise could potentially be adapted to Colombia’s mountainous and heavily forested terrain.

In early August Military Ombudswoman Olga Reshetilova confirmed that other than contributions by active duty personnel from NATO member states, such as the British Royal Marines, approximately 16,000 foreign personnel are engaged in the war effort. According to Reshetilova, nearly 40 percent of foreign volunteers are citizens of Latin American countries. Russian sources have consistent indicated that Colombian personnel have comprised the bulk of these. Russian security agencies have highlighted the growing number of Latin American personnel in the war zone, with multiple defence sources reporting in July that the number of Colombians serving alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces had recently risen significantly.

In August 2025 a Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) investigation revealed that drug traffickers in Central and South America were infiltrating Ukrainian Foreign Legion units to gain experience operating FPV drones, with this experience expected to be invaluable for use against rival gangs or security forces after the war. Mexico's National Intelligence Center (CNI) similarly warned of the risk of drug traffickers posing as volunteers to infiltrate Ukrainian units for such purposes. Such infiltration operations are far from unprecedented, and mirror similar reported operations by cartels to have personnel in the United States enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces to gain experience, which is then passed on to cartel members.