By T. Bunke

What kind of attacks could a Mexican drug cartel drone operator with combat experience in Ukraine carry out? It’s a question everyone from the Oval Office to the nearest border patrol boat on the Rio Grande should be asking.

This is according to a Deutsche Welle article that suggests the possibility that members of Mexican cartels, hired by private security companies, have enlisted as mercenaries to operate drones in the conflict.

The German agency cites as its source a French website specializing in military intelligence , which in turn cites the Ukrainian secret services, which are currently under investigation, and the Mexican intelligence agency that released the report. If they survive the war, they should return home with their lessons learned burned into them.

Looking where it is not

The information appears the same week that Donald Trump met with Zelensky and the leaders of the European Union and NATO. While they discussed a peace agreement or a ceasefire, which Europe opposes, drug lords trained their “soldiers” for free to maintain more precise surveillance of their territories and/or carry out more targeted and effective attacks against their enemies or against the security forces of any country. They used Western weapons, equipment, and logistics in the training.

It’s also the week in which a US military deployment to the Caribbean was announced , repeatedly mentioning the Venezuelan coast, in a supposed drug interdiction operation. This mission is carried out by the coast guards of the countries that share their waters, and for which neither the army nor the marines have any training. At most, it would serve as surveillance and deterrence.

The UN numbers

Considering the United Nations as a neutral source of information, its 2025 drug report details several facts that refute the notion that Venezuela is a producer of illegal substances.

However, it reveals that El Salvador is a key point for cocaine trafficking to the United States, that Ecuador is the country with the most drug-related violence, and that Argentina and Chile are the largest consumers in South America—all of these countries are allies of the Trump administration, the president of the largest drug-consuming country on the planet.

The same report reveals that the largest monetary profits from drug trafficking remain in Europe and the United States, managing to infiltrate the regulations of their financial systems with sophisticated legitimization mechanisms.

Narrative as a weapon

Weeks before these events, the United States government, having exhausted the narrative of the Aragua Train, which became international crimes in complicity with El Salvador, restarted the narrative of the Cartel of the Suns , whose description resembles a Netflix synopsis, and launched a new –illegal– reward for Nicolás Maduro, constitutional president of Venezuela, and in whose country 70% of the drugs that try to pass through its territory are seized.

From these actions arose the military operation in the Caribbean, whose media headlines focused solely on Venezuela, despite the fact that the body of water covers an area of ​​2.7 million square kilometers.

All seasoned with the dissemination of fake news and alarming messages without foundation in a psychological operation carried out by a large group of social media operators ready to attack Venezuela with any narrative designed in Washington.

All the while, Zelensky, who rules de facto, surrounded by his European patrons, demands more and more resources to continue a lost conflict that allows drug traffickers to be trained on his territory.