A court run by Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region has sentenced two Colombian nationals to 13 years in prison each for taking part in hostilities on behalf of Ukraine. The prosecutor’s office announced the verdict on Telegram, saying Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37, were convicted “for participating in hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
According to reports, Ante and Medina served with Ukrainian forces in 2023 and 2024. They disappeared in July while travelling through Venezuela — a close Russian ally — on their way back to Colombia. Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported in July 2024 that the men were detained in Caracas still wearing Ukrainian military uniforms. About a month later, Russian authorities said they had taken the two into custody. Footage released by Russia’s FSB showed them handcuffed, dressed in prison clothing and escorted through a court building by masked officers.
The sentences were widely reported in Colombian media. Medina’s wife, Cielo Paz, told the AFP news agency she had not heard from her husband since his arrest and said, “I don’t know if we will see them again one day. That’s the sad reality.”
The convictions are the latest in a series of lengthy sentences handed down by Russian or Moscow-backed courts to foreign nationals captured fighting for Ukraine. In June, Russian state news agency TASS reported that Pablo Puentes Borges, another Colombian, received a 28-year term from a Russian military court on charges including terrorism and mercenary activity. In April, Miguel Angel Cardenas Montilla, also from Colombia, was given a nine-year sentence for fighting with Ukrainian forces.
Moscow’s authorities label foreign fighters who fought for Kyiv as “mercenaries,” a charge that can carry up to 15 years in prison. Kyiv and independent reporting note that most foreign volunteers serve formally with Ukraine’s armed forces and receive the same pay and status as Ukrainian soldiers. That formal enlistment means many do not meet the legal definition of a mercenary under international law, which has led critics to say captured foreign fighters should be treated as prisoners of war and afforded protections under the Geneva Conventions rather than prosecuted as mercenaries.
Colombia’s government says dozens of its citizens have been killed fighting in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The conflict continues to produce contentious legal and diplomatic issues over the status and treatment of foreign combatants captured on the battlefield.
The sentencing came as fighting and bombardment persist across front lines in eastern Ukraine; independent reporting has documented damage to apartment blocks and civilian infrastructure in towns near the front, illustrating the wider human cost of the conflict.
