The Colombian Ministry of Defense has urged citizens “not to give in to deception“ and not to agree to work as mercenaries.
“Working as a mercenary is nothing more than international human trafficking: you are manipulated, taken to another country and placed in precarious conditions without any legal protection“, the Ministry writes in X.
The Ministry is urging Colombians to refuse such offers. “The best path will always be here, in your homeland, on the side of the law“, they stressed.
In October, Semana reported that Colombians who had fought on the Ukrainian side had recorded an appeal to the country's President Gustavo Petro, asking for help in returning home. They complained that they were being forced to sign documents without Spanish translations and that they were not receiving the promised salary.
Petro later called on Colombians fighting in Ukraine to return home, accusing Ukrainians of treating Colombian citizens “as an inferior race“. He was responding to an article in the local newspaper Noticias Caracol that reported the detention of 35 Colombian mercenaries in Ukraine who had refused to sign a new six-month contract.
The Wall Street Journal called Colombia a “gold mine“ for recruiting fighters to participate in conflicts abroad, especially in Ukraine.
This summer, a Russian court sentenced Colombian citizen Pablo Puentes Burges, captured in the Kursk region, to 28 years in prison on several charges, including mercenary activity (part 3 of article 359 of the Criminal Code), terrorism (part 2 of article 205), and illegal border crossing (article 322). According to the prosecutor's office, the Colombian voluntarily joined the 47th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian army and, in exchange for financial compensation, participated in the Ukrainian army's attack on the Kursk region.