{"id":554451,"date":"2025-11-07T05:25:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T05:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/554451\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T05:25:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T05:25:22","slug":"moscow-backed-court-jails-two-colombians-who-fought-for-ukraine-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/554451\/","title":{"rendered":"Moscow-backed court jails two Colombians who fought for Ukraine | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Colombian fighters Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 were each sentenced to 13 years in prison for serving with Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n<p>Published On 7 Nov 20257 Nov 2025<\/p>\n<p>Click here to share on social media<\/p>\n<p>share2<\/p>\n<p class=\"rich-share__social-text\">Share<\/p>\n<p>A court run by Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine\u2019s occupied Donetsk region has sentenced two Colombian nationals to 13 years in prison each for fighting on behalf of Kyiv.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling, announced on Thursday, is the latest in a series of lengthy sentences handed to foreign fighters accused by Moscow-backed prosecutors of being \u201cmercenaries\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor participating in hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine\u201d \u2013 Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 \u2013 \u201cwere each sentenced to 13 years in prison\u201d, the prosecutor\u2019s office said on the Telegram messaging app.<\/p>\n<p>According to reports, the pair fought for Ukraine in 2023 and 2024 before disappearing in July while transiting through Venezuela, a close ally of Russia, on their way home to Colombia after serving in the war.<\/p>\n<p>Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported in July 2024 that the men were detained in the Venezuelan capital Caracas while still wearing Ukrainian military uniforms.<\/p>\n<p>A month later, Russian authorities said they had taken custody of the two, who both hail from the western Colombian city of Popayan.<\/p>\n<p>Footage released by Russia\u2019s FSB security service showed the men handcuffed and dressed in prison uniforms as masked officers escorted them through a court building.<\/p>\n<p>News of the pair\u2019s sentencing on Thursday was widely covered in Colombian media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if we will see them again one day. That\u2019s the sad reality,\u201d said Medina\u2019s wife, Cielo Paz, in an interview with the AFP news agency, adding that she had not heard from her husband since his arrest.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Colombia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#Colombia<\/a> \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddf4\ud83c\uddf7\ud83c\uddfa Alexander Ante y Jos\u00e9 Medina fueron condenados por participar como &#8220;mercenarios&#8221; en las hostilidades del lado de las Fuerzas Armadas de Ucrania.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udc49Lee la nota completa en: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UrlDjv6Tnp\">https:\/\/t.co\/UrlDjv6Tnp<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1kiEl1rlU2\">pic.twitter.com\/1kiEl1rlU2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 RTVC Noticias (@RTVCnoticias) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RTVCnoticias\/status\/1986508021455876175?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">November 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Translation: Alexander Ante and Jose Medina were convicted for participating as \u201cmercenaries\u201d in the hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>In June, Russian state news agency TASS reported that Pablo Puentes Borges, another Colombian national, was handed a 28-year prison term by a Russian military court on charges of terrorism and mercenary activity for fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, in April, Miguel Angel Cardenas Montilla, also from Colombia, received a nine-year sentence for fighting with Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n<p>While Russian investigators have labelled foreigners who fight alongside Ukrainian forces as \u201cmercenaries\u201d, the Kyiv Post notes that most foreign fighters serving in Ukraine\u2019s armed forces are formally enlisted and receive the same pay and status as Ukrainian soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>That formalisation of their status in the Ukrainian army means they do not meet the legal definition of a mercenary under international law, the media outlet reported.<\/p>\n<p>But Moscow continues to prosecute captured foreign fighters as \u201cmercenaries\u201d \u2013 a charge that carries up to 15 years in prison \u2013 rather than recognising them as prisoners of war who are protected under the Geneva Conventions.<\/p>\n<p>Colombia\u2019s government says dozens of its citizens have been killed fighting in Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4077311\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2025-11-01T144858Z_299656417_RC2ONHALKP2L_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-KOSTIANTYNIVKA-1762079027.jpg\" alt=\"Apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike.\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>Apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia\u2019s attack on Ukraine, in the front-line town of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on November 1, 2025 [Yan Dobronosov\/Reuters]<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colombian fighters Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 were each sentenced to 13 years in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[25911,30,2000,299,3274,2597,12,285,18939,332,7661,657,8518],"class_list":{"0":"post-554451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-colombia","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-latin-america","13":"tag-military","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-prison","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-venezuela"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115506756042077351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}