Colombian and U.S. Contractors Bolster Ukrainian Frontlines in Sumy and Kharkiv
Eastern Europe and Central Asia , Ground
Personnel from Colombia and the United States have bolstered the Ukrainain Army’s positions on the frontlines in the Sumy and Kharkiv, according to a report from Russian intelligence on September 8. Personnel from the United Kingdom and from Baltic states are reported to also be involved in hostilities in these regions. "Of course, these are mainly Colombians and Latin Americans, less often the British and the United States, the Baltic countries," the source reported to state media. Reports on the operations of Colombian personnel in Sumy have emerged with growing frequency since May, at a time of intensifying hostilities as Russian Army units made significant advances. Polish contractors have also frequently been reported to be playing a major role in the region. Reports of contractors from the United States have been less frequent, although personnel from the American Forward Observations Group military organisation notably confirmed their deployment as part of Ukrainian offensives into the Russian Kursk region in August 2024, posting a picture as evidence.
Russian government sources highlighted the significant benefits of targeting foreign fighters in Ukraine in January 2024, after a strike on the headquarters of European contractors that month caused at least 80 casualties, 60 or more of which were deaths. These personnel were “highly trained specialists who work on specific weapons systems too complex for the average Ukrainian conscripts,” according to Russian state media reports, with their neutralisation having “put some of the most lethal and long-range weapons in the Ukrainian arsenal out of service until more specialists are found” to replace them.
The importance of foreign fighters has grown both as Ukraine has received growing quantities of complex new weaponry from its supporters in the Western world, which often require foreign personnel to operate, and as the Ukrainian Army has suffered from increasingly extreme manpower shortages. Leaked military files in August confirmed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost more than 1.7 million personnel, including both those killed and missing, including 118,500 personnel killed or missing in 2022, 405,400 in 2023, 595,000 in 2024 and 621,000 so far in 2025. Sources on both sides report that Ukrainain Army frontline units are manned at just 30-45 percent as a result of these losses. The dispatch of large numbers of contractor personnel, in particular from Poland and Latin America, appears intended to shore up Ukrainian lines in the face of these unsustainable losses.
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