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Twenty Brazilian mercenaries fighting on the side of Ukraine have been eliminated in the zone of the special military operation, an official in Russian law enforcement structures told TASS on August 20.
“More foreign mercenaries killed in the special military operation zone have been identified. These are 20 Brazilian citizens who were eliminated in various sectors of the front,” he said.
According to the official, after being recruited via social networks, they came to Colombia, where they signed contracts with the Ukrainian armed forces.
The presence of Brazilian mercenaries in Ukraine has been a subject of significant scrutiny throughout the year, with various investigative reports documenting both the scale of participation and the hazardous conditions faced by these fighters.
In February, an investigation by The Kyiv Independent, in collaboration with the Brazilian television network SBT, uncovered allegations of abuse within a Brazilian-led unit known as the “Advanced Company,” which operates under Ukraine’s military intelligence.
That report detailed the death of a Brazilian recruit, Bruno Gabriel Leal da Silva, who died at a base in Kyiv following reports of harsh disciplinary treatment.
The fallout from that investigation intensified in March, when the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Press Institute reported that the unit’s commander, a Brazilian national named Leanderson Paulino, had issued direct threats against the journalists involved in the exposé.
The threats reportedly prompted an internal investigation by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR) into the commander’s conduct.
By April, national reporting by Folha de S.Paulo highlighted the increasingly complex challenges families face when attempting to confirm the status of their relatives fighting in Ukraine, detailing cases where official consular records from the Brazilian Embassy in Kyiv remained inconclusive or marked individuals as missing even as family members discovered through unofficial channels that their loved ones had been killed in active combat.
These reports have occurred against a backdrop of increasing concern from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, known as Itamaraty, which has repeatedly discouraged citizens from joining the Ukrainian armed forces.
Amid ongoing troop shortages and protracted combat losses, Ukraine has increasingly relied on foreign mercenaries to bolster its ranks, mainly within the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine.
This reliance has driven targeted recruitment initiatives across Latin America, utilizing social media campaigns and revised contract terms that appeal to individuals with prior military experience.
Among foreign contingents, personnel from Latin American nations—particularly Brazil and Colombia—have represented a notable segment of the auxiliary forces, with estimates from institutional data indicating that citizens from the region have made up a substantial portion of foreign enlistments in ground units.
This heavy deployment has resulted in a mounting human cost: official tracking from Itamaraty confirms that dozens of Brazilian mercenaries have died or gone missing in Ukraine, placing Brazil among the countries with some of the highest recorded casualties among international combatants.
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