Filipe Marques Pinto looks like many mercenaries in Ukraine: shaved bald, in combat gear, with a serious expression. However, his case is special. In a recruitment video from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the Brazilian stands in front of a brick wall, looks sternly into the camera and talks about his front-line missions as an air defense soldier. In his native Rio de Janeiro, he worked as a “security specialist” before arriving in Ukraine in 2023 to fight against Russia.
However, the recording only shows half the truth. In the favelas of the Brazilian metropolis, Pinto became famous as a member of a criminal group Commando Vermelho (pt. Red Commando), a brutal gang of drug and weapons dealers fighting for influence with other gangs. Pinto did not go to Ukraine out of conscience [by pomóc się bronić Ukraińcom przed rosyjską napaścią]only with a perfidious plan. A plan that has already killed the first people in Brazil.
The Brazilian came to Ukraine to learn new warfare techniques and how to operate drones – skills he planned to use in Rio de Janeiro in the fight against law enforcement. This was confirmed by Brazilian police in an interview with the Ukrainian news website Kyiv Independent.
One of Pinto's colleagues, also a mercenary, confirmed on Brazilian television that since 2023, Pinto has returned from Ukraine to Brazil many times to pass on what he has learned about fighting techniques to his colleagues in the Red Commando cartel.
Drone war in favelas
Filipe Marques Pinto is not an isolated case. As revealed by the French portal Intelligence Online, Latin American cartels have been using the war in Ukraine to train their members for a long time. The cartels send them as mercenaries to foreign fronts, where they are trained in the use of cutting-edge military equipment. This knowledge is useful to them in their own bloody wars waged against law and order in their home countries.
How deadly is the transfer of knowledge from the Ukrainian front to the favela is shown by the brutal police action against the Red Commando in a favela in Rio de Janeiro carried out at the end of October, in which over 100 people died. During the fight between cartel members and the police, there were attacks using drones, with the help of which gangsters dropped self-made mini-bombs on law enforcement officers.
This is a tactic used by Ukrainian and Russian special forces for years. According to estimates, about 70 percent soldiers killed on the Ukrainian front are currently killed by drone attacks.
The Ukrainian army, whose ranks include thousands of Colombians, Brazilians and Mexicans, is currently cautious about allowing foreign soldiers to receive drone training. This is confirmed by Brazilian mercenary Everson Neves in an interview with Kyiv Independent. The army realized what some Latin American mercenaries were really up to.
How European countries can use the knowledge and experience of Ukrainians
Fortunately, it is not only drug cartels that send their people to drone operation training conducted by Ukrainian specialists. For example, Denmark has already invited Ukrainian officers who showed the Danes what they have learned from almost four years of war in terms of drone technology and their use in defense.
Suspicious cases of drones, which put the services on their feet this fall and led to the temporary closure of airports in many European countries, show that anti-drone defense is a very current topic across the continent. The Polish army is also – according to unofficial reports from PAP – conducting talks on joint training of military experts from Poland and Ukraine in the field of drone warfare and combating unmanned aerial vehicles.
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