From the war in Ukraine to the jungles of Colombia: Kyiv's drones reach the cartels
Criminal organizations and guerrilla groups in Colombia are trying to send fighters to the Ukrainian front so they can learn to operate advanced explosive drones and use the knowledge against their country's army. After hundreds of aerial attacks and 15 soldiers killed, the government in Bogota is investing $1.6 billion in a "drone shield": "Security forces have completely lost their monopoly on the airspace." It is estimated that about 500 Colombians have been killed in Ukraine in 4 years of war.
On the fronts of Eastern Europe, a Colombian soldier who volunteered for the Ukrainian army recently encountered a disturbing discovery: some of his countrymen who sought to join the fighting were linked to criminal organizations in Colombia. "After the connections were discovered, they were screened out and sent home," said Taras Plianytsia, an officer at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's Foreign Recruitment Center.
However, according to a report today (Thursday) in the Financial Times, this is not a one-time occurrence. Over the past year, evidence has accumulated that criminal organizations and illegal armed groups in Colombia are trying to send fighters to Ukraine so they can acquire the most advanced knowledge in the field of drone warfare at the front — and use it against the Colombian army upon their return. "The recruitment programs are very complex, but what worries me most is the level of professionalization they are acquiring," a Colombian aid worker in Ukraine, who requested anonymity, told the Times. According to him, "former militia members, former guerrillas, and former soldiers are fighting and learning here together how to operate drones."
Drones have fundamentally changed the battlefield in Ukraine, and now they are causing a similar change in the internal conflict that has been ongoing in Colombia for decades. In the struggle against the guerrilla organizations and cartels operating in the jungles, the government in Bogota could previously almost always rely on its control of the skies. Today, this advantage is no longer taken for granted. "The drone industry has exploded, and criminals have adapted the technology for attack purposes," said Colombia's outgoing Minister of Defense, Pedro Sanchez, an Air Force general. According to him, this is a "significant challenge to air superiority on the battlefield."
According to estimates by the Colombian Ministry of Defense, illegal organizations carried out 264 drone attacks in 2024 and 2025. In most cases, cheap commercial drones were used, adapted to carry explosives and drop them on soldiers, outposts, and military facilities. The attacks were attributed mainly to the guerrilla organization "National Liberation Army" (ELN) and breakaway factions of FARC — the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest rebel organization. According to official data, 15 soldiers were killed and 153 others were wounded in the attacks, many of which occurred in jungles and mountainous areas where coca, the raw material for cocaine production, is grown.
The threat is no longer limited to security forces: in 2024, a ten-year-old boy was killed and 12 other civilians were wounded after a drone dropped a grenade during a soccer match in the Cauca department. According to a report in the Guardian, this was the first known case in Colombia where a person was killed in an armed drone attack. Last May, a soldier was killed and six others were wounded during a patrol in a coca-growing area, and a month earlier, drones killed three soldiers near the border with Ecuador and damaged a military radar system in the Cauca department. In December, seven people were killed in attacks on a military base.
"This is a dramatic change that has affected mobility and survival chances on the battlefield," Sanchez said. According to him, last year the Colombian army managed to "neutralize" 96% of drone attack attempts, partly by jamming radio frequencies or destroying the aircraft. However, the armed groups are now trying to learn from the war in Ukraine how to bypass these defense systems. A Colombian drone operator fighting in Ukraine said that recruiters on behalf of the cartels are looking for people who can learn to assemble and operate FPV drones — aircraft controlled via a camera that transmits a real-time image to the operator. The small and agile drones are usually flown directly at the target and explode upon impact, and their speed and maneuverability make them very difficult to intercept.
"They are already starting to use FPV drones in Colombia," the operator told the Times from the southern front in the Zaporizhzhia region. "But what they still don't know is how to encrypt the communication between the drone and the person flying it, or how to install the explosive charge as they do here in Ukraine." The armed organizations are also trying to acquire drones connected to the operator via thin fiber-optic cables. Unlike drones that receive commands via radio signals, these aircraft do not depend on wireless communication and are therefore much harder to jam. The technology, developed and expanded during the Russia-Ukraine war, has also been adopted in recent months by Hezbollah, as is known, and has led to many casualties in the IDF.
The Colombian government is trying to curb the phenomenon through strict restrictions on drone imports. In January, it even announced a plan to establish a "drone shield" at a cost of $1.6 billion, and has already approved a budget of about $271 million for the first phase. The plan will include frequency jamming measures and detection systems, both stationary and vehicle-mounted, in an attempt to protect security forces and strategic facilities. However, experts warn that purchasing defense systems is not enough and that action must also be taken to prevent the transfer of knowledge from Colombian fighters returning from Ukraine.
Colombian army veterans, who have gained combat experience over decades of internal conflict in the country, have been fighting for years in distant theaters, including South Sudan, Yemen, and Ukraine. It is estimated that about 500 Colombians have been killed in Ukraine in the four years since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. "Colombians are able to learn and adapt very quickly and endure difficult service conditions," said Ukrainian recruitment officer Plianytsia. "They have proven themselves to the commanders, who really like these guys."
"Cannon fodder"
The participation of Colombian citizens in the war has sparked sharp controversy in their homeland. Last October, outgoing President Gustavo Petro claimed that "Ukrainians treat Colombians as an inferior race" and called on citizens who, according to him, are used as "cannon fodder" to return home. In an attempt to reduce the economic incentive to join foreign armies, his government raised soldiers' wages and ratified a UN convention against mercenaries. Defense Minister Sanchez said that the departure of Colombian fighters to distant battlefields is a "sad reality" stemming from the gap between the high wages offered to them abroad and the relatively low military pensions they receive in their country.
The Colombian army has been fighting cartels and guerrilla organizations for decades. The armed conflict in the country has claimed, by some estimates, the lives of about 450,000 people between 1958 and 2016. The country's largest rebel organization, FARC, disarmed as part of a peace agreement in 2016, but breakaway factions continued to fight in the country. The armed groups in Colombia are involved in a series of illegal industries, including drug trafficking, illegal mining, and extortion. Their activity increased during the rule of Petro, who for about three years tried to negotiate with them as part of a "Total Peace" program before moving to a more aggressive policy towards the end of his term.
Tomorrow, Petro is expected to hand over the presidency to Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing figure considered a security hawk who has promised to build prisons in the jungle. After another drone attack against the army, he declared that he would prioritize "restoring the state's authority in areas most affected by violence." However, he is expected to take over a country where the balance of power has already changed. "The amount of drones in the hands of these organizations can very easily overwhelm any military or civilian target," warned Elizabeth Dickinson, Senior Analyst for the Americas at the International Crisis Group. According to her, Colombia's armed forces "have completely lost their monopoly on the airspace — and that is a huge strategic shift."
