The drug cartels using Ukraine's frontlines to master drone warfare

Mexican and Colombian drug cartels are sending fighters to Ukraine to gain battlefield experience with attack drones, before returning home to deploy the same tactics in their wars with rival gangs and security forces, intelligence analysts have warned. The International Legion fighting alongside Kyiv has become a magnet not only for genuine volunteers but also for operatives tied to organised crime, according to Latin American and European security services.

Once inside Ukraine, cartel members are exposed to cutting-edge training in the use of first-person-view (FPV) drones, capable of delivering devastating precision strikes. Reports of Colombians moving through Ukraine with full military kit have increased over the past year.

Alexander Marciniak, a Latin American intelligence analyst for the Sibylline strategic risk group, said there has been "a very large uptick" in the use of drones by cartels and guerrilla groups in recent months.

"The CJNG [Jalisco New Generation Cartel] has its own drone operators that it uses to conduct strikes on security forces or rivals," he said.

"They strap a grenade to a cheap Chinese quadcopter, fly it into a target and detonate it. We've seen a wave of attacks in the last three or four months, including one incident where a FARC operative allegedly flew a drone into a police helicopter."

The warnings come as both Mexico and Colombia reel from unprecedented drone violence.

At least 18 people were killed and dozens wounded in two separate attacks in Colombia last week, deepening the country's most serious security crisis in decades.

Casualties included 12 people killed when a police helicopter was brought down by a drone in the north-western city of Medellín - once the stronghold of drug lord Pablo Escobar.

President Gustavo Petro said the aircraft had been on a mission to eradicate coca crops, describing the strike as the work of EMC, the largest dissident faction of the Farc guerrillas.

The country's defence ministry said 115 drone attacks were recorded in 2024, most carried out by armed groups tied to the cocaine trade.

Meanwhile, peace talks with guerrilla remnants have stalled, cocaine production is rising again, and groups frustrated by lost territory are reaching for new methods.

In Chihuahua, Mexico, a National Guard colonel was killed in a cartel ambush.

State police later displayed seized drones fitted with explosives, used to attack army patrols in the "Golden Triangle" narcotics production zone.

"We've had a pair of incidents in which members of organised crime are using drones with explosives to hinder our personnel," said Chihuahua police chief of staff Luis Aguirre.

Mexico's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has presided over a fall in homicides nationwide, but violence is spiralling in Sinaloa, where factions of the cartel once led by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán are locked in a civil war. Authorities say drones are increasingly being used in those clashes, as well as in trafficking operations along the US border, where they scout patrols and drop contraband.

Analysts say the convergence of cartel violence in Latin America and battlefield innovation in Ukraine poses an international security risk.

"Ukraine has become a platform for the global dissemination of FPV tactics," one Ukrainian security official told a European defence journal recently. "Some come to learn how to kill with a $400 drone, then sell that knowledge to whoever pays the highest price."

Marciniak added: "There's more incentive than ever for these cartels to up their game.

"The market in the US and Europe is as big as ever. I wouldn't be surprised if drones become central to their tactics."