Daniela Arias is an MA student in the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU.
This is Part II in a two-part series. Part I may be found here.
Much like people who use social media to showcase routes for crossing borders illegally and lure others to follow them, many of those who enlist in the war also share and stream those experiences online. In turn, illegal recruitment networks exploit the way the war is represented on these platforms. “Every day, dozens of people from all over the world arrive to enlist. Many Colombians come after watching TikTok videos, as if this were a game,” said one of G. Jaramillo Rojas’ soldier informants, adding: “What is posted on social media is not real.”
Some of the men and women Jaramillo interviewed have posted about their experiences in Ukraine, on accounts with thousands of followers. Many appear proud to “defend a country.” This rhetoric is problematic not only because it reflects Colombia’s fractured social structure and perpetuates the glorification of militarism, but also because it has become one of the “hooks” private security companies use to profit from the war and exploit international legal loopholes.
Investigations by El Espectador indicate that TikTok is one of the main mechanisms organized crime groups use for recruitment. In December 2025, former Colombian soldiers in Ukraine reported that they had been recruited by a man calling himself “Dante,” who never paid them. They even recorded a video asking President Gustavo Petro to send a humanitarian flight to bring them back to Colombia.
That same month, relatives of former soldiers in Ukraine and Russia gathered to request government assistance. “Around 80 people marched to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bogotá to demand the repatriation of the bodies of their husbands, brothers, and sons killed in combat,” writes the Investigative Unit of El Espectador. Families have also organized demonstrations to demand answers from the Russian Embassy in Bogotá, which has not responded to their requests.
El Espectador has uncovered evidence that private companies are operating through intricate recruitment networks. Since late 2024, the outlet has identified accounts, registered in Spain, on platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Meta, and TikTok, all of them seeking personnel to fight on Russia’s side. Many people report being offered millions of Colombian pesos in payment to guard territory that is no longer contested or to carry out assault missions in Russian-controlled areas. Yet once they arrive on the ground, fighters find the reality drastically different from what they were promised online.
According to testimonies, one of the recruiting networks is led by a man named Nazar Kuzmin, who claims to be a Ukrainian military officer, along with four former members of the Colombian Army. The Investigative Unit found that Kuzmin was born in Odesa but spent most of his life in Argentina. Following the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, he established the company Argo Hispanos, although it is unclear when he began recruiting in Colombia. In July 2024, Kuzmin posted an image on Instagram “outlining the terms and conditions for joining: a three-year contract, a monthly salary of 17 million COP (approximately 3,600 USD), and the requirement to pass physical and psychological tests.”
There are other foreign nationals serving in the Russian forces. According to John Healey, British Secretary of State for Defense, the Russian military is “increasingly reliant on foreign fighters from Latin America, central Asia and Africa” due to its inability to compensate for heavy losses on the front lines. Intelligence reports indicate that thousands of citizens from India, Nepal, Cuba, Nigeria, and Kenya have been incorporated into Russian occupation forces, often under false pretenses.
Healey reported that many participants are recruited with promises of non-combat employment, only to be sent to the most dangerous areas. This situation has sparked diplomatic tensions between Russia and some of the countries it has mined for manpower. In February 2026, for instance, the Kenyan government registered a complaint with Moscow following the evacuation of 30 wounded Kenyan citizens, who had traveled to Russia for what they believed would be civilian work, and later were sent to the battlefields of Ukraine.
Hugo Caro, journalist for El Espectador, explained that it has been much more difficult to trace the mechanisms used by the Russian military to recruit Colombians than those the Ukrainian side has deployed. However, in February 2026, the Investigative Unit gathered documents, chats, and testimonies from at least 21 families, “revealing several networks as well as a family-run business owned by two retired colonels from the Colombian army.” In the past, these men had themselves participated in operations against Colombian guerrilla groups. Today, they operate routes taking former Colombian military personnel to Russia, where they sign contracts before being deployed to Ukraine.
The company, called Global Qowa Al Basheria SAS, was legally established in Bogotá in 2012 and exemplifies the lucrative business surrounding Russia’s war. On its website, the company, commercially known as “Mi Futuro Global,” claims to be a “leader in providing high-quality human resources to the Middle East and neighboring regions.” On social media, it asserts that each month it sends up to “100 global soldiers to work abroad.” Yet its advertising copy never specifies the destinations of these former Colombian military personnel. There are reports that some are sent to war zones without their consent.
“They offered him a job in Poland working in a coal mine. That’s what they told him. A man named Uber Cruz was supposed to take him there. When he was already at the airport in Poland, he told me that wasn’t the final destination, but rather Ufa,” explains Paola Gómez, the widow of one of the men allegedly recruited by Cruz. At least three accounts agree that the company’s offer did not explicitly involve fighting with Russian forces. One case, in particular, recounts how one of the deceased mercenaries had first fought in Sudan. From there, the company paid for his transfer to enlist in the Russian army. According to El Espectador, the connection between the two conflicts is not new, as the Russian Wagner Group militias have previously maintained a presence in Sudan.
While the qualitative impact of the war on Colombia is reflected in these testimonies, precise figures remain difficult to obtain. In his book, En la línea cero todos somos fantasmas, Jaramillo states that in mid-2024 the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luis Murillo, made an official visit to Moscow. There, he was given access to Russian government figures on Colombian participation in the war that put participants at about 500; deaths at 300; and desertions at 100. For its part, as of 2025, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had officially recognized approximately 65 Colombians killed in Ukraine.
These figures contrast with the testimonies of those Gómez and Jaramillo have interviewed. These informants speak of thousands of fatalities and missing persons, in addition to a large number of wounded. According to some accounts, many casualties among Colombian soldiers go unreported by either army. The situation regarding wounded or deceased soldiers is complex for several reasons. On the one hand, it is now much more difficult to recover bodies from the front lines than it was at the start of the war. On the other, Colombia has no consular representation in Ukraine, so those requiring assistance must contact the Colombian Consulate in Warsaw.
Another consequence of the Russia-Ukraine war that various outlets have highlighted is the increasing use of drones in internal conflicts across several Latin American countries. According to an article in The Economist published in late 2025, videos from the war in Ukraine were a “watershed moment” that showed Latin American armed groups what these weapons could achieve. There are already reported cases in Mexico and Brazil of increased drone use, and in Colombia, as “groups like the ELN and the Gulf Clan gain experience in using these devices, their ability to inflict serious damage is likely to improve.” As early as 2024, a 10-year-old boy was killed in a drone attack attributed to FARC dissidents.
Against this broader regional backdrop, Colombia has also begun to confront the domestic implications of these dynamics, particularly the rise in mercenarism. In December 2025, the Colombian House of Representatives passed a bill introduced in 2024 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense to prevent the recruitment and participation of citizens in “mercenary” activities. President Gustavo Petro has described mercenarism as “a modern form of human trafficking, where vulnerable young people are turned into commodities for killing.”
By contrast, Colombia’s Defense Minister, Pedro Sánchez, made problematic statements on the issue, saying that the law’s main role was to prevent “extremely valuable personnel from fleeing the country.” After all, “we train them here for many years, and they acquire enormous skills; but when they see the opportunity to go and fight elsewhere, they leave, and as a country we lose a great deal in our ability to protect Colombians.” Although Sánchez nominally supports the bill, his militaristic remarks suggest that his priority is not to address Colombia’s structural problems, including social issues, that drive people to war zones. Instead, he focuses on mercenaries not as people, but as a kind of resource to which Colombia is losing access.
After it awaited review for several months, President Petro signed the bill into law on 17 March 2026. The law establishes a legal framework to prevent Colombians from participating in foreign conflicts, including the prohibition and punishment of military training for mercenary purposes, international cooperation, and the protection of veterans through reintegration programs and financial support. Despite this significant progress, it will take time to gather more precise data and tackle the root causes of mercenarism. As a UN team that recently visited Colombia noted, “this trend is likely to continue to rise” before the law has a tangible impact.
Although many recruitment networks have already been traced and the drivers of this phenomenon identified, it remains disconcerting that stories of violence from countries as distant as Ukraine, Russia, and Colombia intersect. For years, Russian state and non-state armed forces have lured individuals from marginalized regions into combat. After four years of war, and despite enormous efforts and investment to sustain the aggression, Russia’s military faces a significant manpower shortage, worsened by combat deaths and massive emigration since 2022. At this critical juncture, Russia has expanded its recruitment strategies to the Global South, particularly in Africa and Latin America.
For its part, Ukraine continues to resist and repel Russian attacks, despite inconsistent support from European countries. From a safe distance, these nations have framed this war as the “battle for Western democracy,” thereby casting Ukraine as the last line of defense. In this context, and to compensate for and avoid further losses among their own troops, the Ukrainian army has also turned to citizens from the Global South. In effect, for both sides, these citizens have become just another expendable resource in war.
While it is true that “human raw material” from the Global South has been exploited in numerous international conflicts, the testimonies gathered by Gomez and Jaramillo point to a specific—and likely unforeseen—consequence. Beyond the illegal trafficking networks surrounding the mercenary industry and the economic motivations that lead people to risk their lives by fighting in foreign conflicts, what is striking in this case is that Colombians like 21-year-old Baruc say they now understand “what it really means to be a patriot,” while others, such as Sagitario, emphasize that they are perceived as heroes and have received the recognition and gratitude they lack in their own country.
Such statements raise questions about nation-building processes in the countries involved, and about the ways in which nationalist discourses are gaining ground. In Colombia, the widespread perception of a “failed and absent state” or the “failure of the nation-building project” has been linked to the country’s prolonged political instability. Scholars have even referred to “inconclusive political transitions” or the country’s “postponed modernity.” Rather than validating or rejecting these ideas, it is worth noting that the failure to develop robust social policies, provide legal protection and ensure opportunities for marginalized populations has led generations of people to turn to state and non-state armed groups as a means of social mobility, social recognition, or subsistence.
For entirely different historical reasons, the concept of the “nation” during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods has also been unstable, and transitions between national identities have not been linear. The boundaries between “empire” and “nation,” or between “Soviet identity” and “Russian identity,” for example, have not always been easy to discern. Furthermore, over the past century, nearly every generation in the post-Soviet space has been deeply marked by war. In systems that elevate militarism and sacrifice for “the Motherland” as ultimate values, war has been, for many, “the world where they grew up and learned to survive.”
Those words—the very ones Gómez used to describe the experience of Colombian soldiers—reveal what, exactly, is being sold and exported. Against a backdrop of widespread crisis and a sense of deepening instability, nationalisms claim to ease collective anxieties and have thus become symbolic goods that can be traded and transferred. From this perspective, it is less surprising that some countries export their notions of “patriotism,” while others export and sell combatants willing to put their bodies on the front lines of war. Under new media regimes, these “values” become just another set of commodities circulating freely in the global market.
