Alejandro Guerrero is a Colombian actor and he is 50 years old. For a long time, he worked in national television productions, but the pandemic and the lack of job opportunities forced him to leave the country to work as a mercenary for the Ukrainian government.
Guerrero, in an interview with Sigue La W, stated that he voluntarily searched online for a contact to join as a military member of the Foreign Legion in Ukraine, as his profile and experience as a Colombian soldier allowed him to be accepted by the Ministry of Defense of Zelenski’s government.
“I came here out of necessity because, unfortunately, it is no secret that for us artists in Colombia, it is very difficult to get ahead. In my particular case, the crisis intensified since the pandemic, because before it, I was working in several productions,” Guerrero noted.
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He pointed out that in Colombia, there are very few job opportunities for all actors and that there is generally always a group of artists that gets hired and rotated as new productions are filmed, in addition to the fact that private channels prefer to repeat past series or telenovelas.
The slow economic recovery after the pandemic did not allow the television industry to invest in new projects and productions, which is why many actors were out of work, and the only option was to engage in other activities, because commitments and debts continued, as happened to Alejandro, who has a daughter and lost his apartment due to the crisis.
Today he is in an area that borders Ukraine and Russia, which he prefers to keep unnamed for safety reasons. Getting to the location was not easy, and since he left Colombia, he has not been able to reach the site where he is supposed to fulfill the objectives for which he was hired; that is, until he reaches that place, he does not get paid.
“Entering the position is very complex; in fact, the battalion I am in has not been able to enter; there have been injuries, a lot of fire, artillery, drones that carry explosives,” Alejandro noted, expressing that his day-to-day life has become one of total uncertainty.
According to Alejandro, the Colombian soldiers hired by the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have contracts that specify the amount they will earn for the activities performed, which cannot be violated as it is a major inconvenience and could lead to sanctions based on Ukrainian laws.
He assured that foreign soldiers who have not complied or simply do not accept the conditions they face have agreed to break the contract without receiving payment in return. Additionally, many of those who arrive in Ukrainian territory find out about situations they had not anticipated, such as having to buy their own supplies and never receiving services from the company.
“Here, you go out to combat. All foreigners who come here come to fight. There are no surveillance operations; this is a war, and one of the documents warns about that (…) this is trench warfare but with technology; you don’t come here to provide guard or surveillance,” he stated.
In the time Alejandro has spent in Ukraine, he has not seen Colombians fall in battle, but he has heard reports that there were units made up of up to 90 foreigners, of which only 10 remain.
On another note, he mentioned that he believes Colombian military personnel who come to serve the Ukrainian government are being deceived, as they are generally not informed under what conditions they arrive, that payment does not come immediately, and in his case, he has only received two payments of $500 out of the supposed $3,000 monthly that was guaranteed to him.
“To people who want to come, I say don’t come. Don’t come here to risk your life; it is unjustifiable for many reasons (…) these people (Ukrainian military forces) neither have the technology nor the necessary weaponry to face that power. There are no operational, logistical, or economic conditions,” Guerrero clarified.