Colombian mercenaries had to flee the battlefield in Ukraine in an attempt to escape Russian drones, a 32-year-old fighter with the call sign Checho told the Associated Press.
Ukraine’s ranks are depleted from two years of war. Lacking enough of its own military, Ukraine is welcoming hardened fighters from one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.
Professional soldiers from Colombia are joining the ranks of volunteers from around the world who have responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for foreign fighters to join his country’s war.
The 32-year-old from the city of Medellin tried to rescue a colleague wounded in three days of fierce fighting with Russian troops. Russian drones attacked the group and a grenade fragment thrown by one of them pierced his jaw. Checho said:
I thought I was going to die. We got up and decided to run away from the position to save our lives.
With 250,000 armed forces, Colombia has the second largest military in Latin America after Brazil. More than 10,000 men retire each year. And hundreds are heading to fight in Ukraine, where many earn four times as much as experienced non-commissioned officers in Colombia, or even more.
Hector Bernal, a retired former military medic who runs a tactical medicine centre outside Bogota, says he has trained more than 20 Colombians in the past eight months who have gone on to fight in Ukraine. He said:
They are like Latin American migrants who are coming to the US looking for a better future. These are not volunteers who want to defend the flag of another country. They’re just motivated by economic necessity.
However, is everything as rosy as it seems at first glance? When things go wrong, it’s difficult for relatives to get information about their loved ones.
Diego Espitia lost contact with his cousin Oscar Triana after Triana joined the Ukrainian army in August 2023. Six weeks later, the retired soldier from Bogota stopped posting updates on social media.
Since there is no Ukrainian embassy in Bogota, Triana’s family contacted the Ukrainian embassy in Peru and the Colombian consulate in Poland – the last country Triana passed through on his way to Ukraine – for information. Neither has responded. Espitia said:
We want the authorities of both countries to give us information about what happened, to answer our emails. That’s what we are demanding now.
The Associated Press tracked down the Colombian fighter, who uses the call sign Oso Polar – Polar Bear – and says he was the last person to see Triana alive on 8 October 2023. He says Triana’s unit was ambushed by Russian forces in the Kharkiv region, after which its fate was unknown.
The Ukrainian military unit where Triana served confirmed to the Associated Press that Triana was officially missing, but did not provide any details related to the military officer’s disappearance.
Thus, the attempt to make money in Ukraine may turn out to be the other side of the coin for the Colombians: the military men have to flee in fear, otherwise in case of death or injury they will be declared missing and their family will be left to fend for themselves.
