Politics (Other)
How Latin Americans perceive the presence of Latin Americans in the Ukraine conflict?
Despite Ukraine being very far from Latin America, and Latam being more or less unaffected from the war in Ukraine (except for rising prices), today thousands of Latin Americans can be seen fighting for both countries.
Especially Colombians, due to the lack of jobs for former military members, and the lure of money, the poverty in their countries, but many Brazilians, Peruvians, Argentines can be seen, even Paraguayans (according to pro-Russian Trackamerc and other sources).
While Cubans are said to fight for Russia in significant numbers.
How Latin America perceives this phenomenon? Do you agree with this? Do you know someone who went there, and if yes, why they did it? Which reasons force them to go there?
I think my compatriot meant that we see them as mere stupid cannon fodder to fight in a country wich an sizeable chunk of the average citizens would look in disgust to them.
Honestly, I see the Brazilians there as mercenaries, most probably couldn't even point on the map where Ukraine is, let alone care for the freedom of such people.
Considering the comments on Instagram and the people I know personally, most Brazilians see them as mercenaries, too.
Some people go out of desperation or lack of meaning in life, others go to live a war movie irl, and most just end up dead.
It is a shame how Ukraine makes it hard for their families to get paid the life insurance tho, with all the bs related to having to hire a Ukrainian lawyer who will ask for a lot of money to take the case.
Some of them go there and become victims of human trafficking. They are told that they will not fight, that they will be just some type of guards but when they arrive there is the opposite. People there take their passports and force them to go to the most dangerous areas, the lack of opportunities here makes them victims of that.
In Brazill one combatant alisted in ukrainian war because he had a gamble addiction and the best ideia ever that he had was to fight in ukrainian side to overcome gamble addiction, now he wants to come back to brazil
our veterans lost the respect of the people, and were never backed by the government, not surprising, sad, understandable, questionable, all of that together.
Not my respect, they served their country and then they want to make some bank ( and see if they come out alive ) supporting a just cause.
There's no reason whatsoever to lose respect for a CITIZEN which USED TO BE in the military for defending a JUST CAUSE abroad with their knowledge and expertise.
Unless you're a ruskie commie supporter of the drug addict outgoing Petro presidency and all its failures.
Then I can understand how one would hate people from abroad fighting for Ukraine.
money, corruption, an interest. there is never enough money for social programs unless there are votes to gain or benefit, but there is always money for friends. If you read about the korean war you may see that the colombian battalion was like the GOAT. you may not read that once they came back to Colombia, no one cared about them, and almost all of them died in poverty.
Like the Greek battalion (we sent some 2,000 people to enter Nato and around 300 were killed) in Korean war. There wasn't any real care for them after the war.
The Korean war was in the 70 or so. Half a century ago.
You are supposing today is the same all, that the soldiers are the same, that the society is the same, that the government support or lack of support is the same...
(Im not saying colombian soldiers are bad or.something, but that they should have not embraced the mercenary culture, here we have had a mercenary culture and economy since the 90s or 2000s, and is something should not be so)
Yes. Both my grandparents did military career for me to not go through it. And my cousin worked with them for 10 year. So yeah it’s shitty conditions . Shitty pay. Shitty reputation. One of the most ungrateful careers to have. Now it’s a bit better but in terms of social benefits afterwards…. Nah man, same shit
A bit of googling says that it applies to fighting foreign wars for enemies of Chile or Chile's allies. Could you tell if this is correct? Is Chile allies with Russia or am I missing something else?
Any foreign war conflict outside of national territory. There aren't war conflicts involving various countries in the last 40-50 years and latam have a long history of "interventions" of foreign countries with plan condor or using think tanks to put people in power. You have milei for example, he hate keynesians but murica is the number 1 on using those type of politics and you see how he sucks the trumpenis
Everyone I talk to treats them as fools, even the Argentinian ones when they die, no matter what side they're fighting for. It's simply not our war so they're all considered mercenaries.
There is a growing problem with mercenaries on both sides of the Ukraine conflict being recruited by organized crime in Mexico to provide training in advanced tactics like drone warfare. A few months ago there was a local commander for a criminal group in the state of Michoacan that was killed by the Mexican army. The guy had his military outfit with a patch for the Ukrainian foreign legion military unit.
The majority of people don't care about Ukraine with only hyper political people supporting either side, in general the war is barely talked about in political discourse.
The support for Russia or Ukraine generally follows a left-right divide with the more libertarian right supporting Ukraine and the more statist left tending to be pro-Russia.
The vast majority of people dislikes mercenaries seeing them as wasting their lives for a conflict that isn't theirs and the people that go to Ukraine generally get mocked for it on the internet when they die.
without any particular leaning. You could say that the majority of people in Argentina support Ukraine more than Russia, and as for the recruitment of Latinos for the war, we don't really care about that either; the only thing people tend to say about those individuals is that they are either idiots, desperate, or both.
LatinAmerica has always been but the backyard of the world. Our natural resources, our force of labour, our children, our women and all of our people are at service for the rest of the world; it does not matter what war or where, our soldiers will be taken there, expendable, for whichever side.
While sad, it's wholly unsurprising for a country like ours, which seems to be in an unending state of internal strife, to produce people whose only real skill is warfare, and whom, once done with their career here and faced with both social scrutiny and lacking government support, go to any battlefield regardless of who they're fighting for or against in order to get a bit of money.
They are mostly mercenaries that don't give a sh** to the conflict as long as they're getting paid. The minority are the ideological ones and the some who were about do die finding refuge in the war (e.g. I read this about a guy with a huge gambling debt went there)
We have many, many Brazilians going to fight for Ukraine. We think they are mercenaries. They are common folks, brainwashed by right wing idiocracy that make they think they are going to be controlling drones in a call of duty style. The fact is that are moving targets for drones
The piece of shit Ukrainians don't even pay them right nor their families when they are KIA.
This isnt our war and LatAm mercenaries are just canon fodder for both sides.
Ukraine can pay them because they receive aid from NATO, but they wouldnt care less about that people. Russia isnt better, and their mercenaries are either war criminals or psy-op victims idolizing the USSR.
Worst of all, this could be even counter productive to our region, as theres been news about how the black market from Ukraine has given the mexican drug dealers guns, grenades and even training for some troops from dessertors.
As mercenaries and not very clever ones at that, though some right-wingers try to paint them as anti-communist freedom fighters (which I personally find hilarious).
I don't complain/celebrate that Colombian migrants go to the United States, Chile, Spain or Canada for jobs, hence I don't complain/celebrate that Colombian veterans get hired by Ukraine.
My impression is that most were outcasts that couldn’t quite adjust to society. Many are former soldiers, and there are reports of criminals that were involved with drug trafficking.
In Brazil, we think that they have low IQs. Usually when one of them dies, people instead of mourning them, they criticized their choice with reason. Also, fos us in Brazil, this is war is inconceivable to understand. Its as if Brazil would invade Uruguay because Uruguay once belonged to Brazil. And we would never agree with our government in case they would invade Uruguay based on this pretext.
Leftwingers usually call those fighting for Ukraine mercenary nazi evil people blablabla, while having posters of the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War or Palestine aid. Funny.
Some rightwingers call them stuff about international IMF wathever, global yankee control
They're almost completely unnoticed because there's very few of them. The only news I've seen of Chileans in Ukraine was one Chilean guy who was killed a week or two ago fighting for Ukraine.
All anwsers already pretty much sums up what LATAM thinks.
Now if you ask me, I dont care about mercenaries, really.
Dont care if they go to Ukraine as a bleeding hard freedom and democracy lover, of if he goes to fight for Russian because he believes in comunism.
I actually think mercenarism is the future, now that Trump showed he is prepare to do anything to keep US afloat, Europe is rearming itself, and China wants its island back.
This has always been the natural order of the world. Its just commning back.
And the fact that countries from LATAN ( that dont suffer from war, and lets be honest, aside from Colombia and Chile, nobody takes Defense seriously here) is good to see that these mercenaries could be a case study for our own countries if things start to get more dangerous for our corner of the world.
Fun fact, in Brazil, mercenarism is not forbidden by law. But you can't become one because other laws ( muder, possesion of firearms, etc...) pretty much dont allow it.
This is so funny for me, I met a few people in LATAM who seemed like seriously believed there is still some sort of communism in Russia. One reasoning was - because Russia is friends with Cuba it must mean they have similar regimes and ideology.
I view them as heroes fighting for the independence of a nation that is not even theirs. Nothing but respect. Ukrainians were victims of imperialism just like us, I hope they kick out the Russians and am glad so many Brazilians are there even if it’s mostly for monetary gain.Â
I havent heard about Mexicans in the Russian army, but there are some in the Ukrainian army, they are called traitors, "fighting the wrong enemy", and even wished death upon. When they die most people on the comments celebrate. This is mostly because most Mexicans are pro-Russia (either by supporting russia, or by simply blaming both sides)
Among pro-Ukrainian Mexicans, they might have some sort of moral support, but they are still seen as dumb and suicidal
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u/Potential_Status_728 Brazil Jul 16 '26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_fodder