Forty-two weapons were recovered by the Mexican military in Naco, Sonora, in 2009. File Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Aug. 17 (UPI) — Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service accused the intelligence services of a Western country of preparing, together with Ukraine, an operation aimed at portraying Moscow as an illegal supplier of weapons to drug cartels and organized crime groups in Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.
The Russian agency said in a statement that Russian-made weapons captured by Ukrainian forces during the war are being transported to the three Latin American countries to be used as part of the operation.
According to the Foreign Intelligence Service, those responsible are also preparing photographs and videos intended to show Russia supplying weapons to Latin American criminal organizations through intermediaries.
The agency said the materials would be accompanied by forged documents seeking to link representatives of the Russian Armed Forces to the weapons transfers.
“The authors of this provocation naively hope in this way to undermine Russia’s constructive relations with the countries of this region and induce Latin American governments to support the anti-Russian policy pursued by the West,” the intelligence service said.
The statement did not identify the Western country it accused of orchestrating the operation or provide public evidence to support the allegations.
Russian intelligence said the objective would be to damage Moscow’s relations with Latin American countries and bring their governments closer to Western policies toward Russia.
As of Monday, the governments of Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela had not publicly responded to the allegations. Ukraine had also not issued an official response to the new statement.
The accusation comes after Russia previously linked Ukraine to Mexican criminal organizations. In late June, Russian officials accused Kyiv of maintaining ties with Mexican cartels, allegations that the Ukrainian Embassy in Mexico publicly rejected.
The Ukrainian diplomatic mission at the time described the claims as part of a Russian disinformation campaign and denied that Ukraine had ties to Mexican drug trafficking organizations.
In the final part of its Monday statement, the Foreign Intelligence Service framed the accusation within what it described as an information war waged by “Euro-Atlantic elites” against Russia since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.
The Russian agency cited as precedents the April 2022 Bucha massacre, which it described as a “bloody staging,” and the 1939 Gleiwitz incident, a false-flag operation carried out by Nazi Germany before the invasion of Poland.