MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. Russia hopes that the leadership of Colombia realizes the dangers stemming from the participation of Colombian nationals as mercenaries in events in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a conference titled "Euromaidan: Ukraine’s Lost Decade."
"Mercenary activities are a dangerous practice because, at the end of the day, when their mission in some country is over, these people, who have no skills except for carrying out terrorist attacks, shooting and killing, need to find something to do," he noted. "It is highly likely that they will return [home to Colombia] and there has never been a shortage of people to argue with or compete with in Colombia. Yet we really hope that the Colombian leadership fully realizes this, much like the leaders of other countries [have]," the top Russian diplomat added.
"It is necessary for everyone to realize as soon as possible that [adopting] a neutral position and calling for a settlement [to the conflict] are a good thing; we greatly appreciate this, this is the stance of the global majority with extremely rare exceptions," Lavrov went on. "Yet when they attempt to sweet-talk the countries of the global majority under the slogan of [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky’s 'peace formula' as the [purportedly] sole acceptable approach to achieving a settlement, here, it is probably necessary to at least show that everyone understands everything and nobody wants to play this game. And mercenary activities, which must be fought against, are certainly part of this problem," he added.
The Russian foreign minister highlighted the fact that the issue of the open recruitment of mercenaries is in many ways tied to "Ukrainian embassies violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in the grossest way possible." "When the website of a Ukrainian embassy posts an offer to [foreign candidates seeking to] be recruited for combat [roles], this causes outrage," he stressed. "We have repeatedly pointed out to the Kiev regime’s Western handlers the need to keep them somewhat in line, but nothing has happened. In some places this [mercenary] recruiting activity has subsided only to resume later," Lavrov concluded.