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Ukrainian Soldiers, Potential Mercenaries: Have Gun, Will Travel!

By Jeffrey Silverman – New Eastern Outlook – September 26, 2026

Ukraine is already providing an early glimpse of what may become a much larger post-war phenomenon: highly trained combat personnel, particularly special-forces and other specialists, carrying their battlefield skills beyond the borders of the countries, in which they acquired them, with many of them NATO trained.

History offers plenty of warnings. Africa has spent decades wrestling with the problem of demobilized combatants, soldiers and guerrillas, whose military skills suddenly have little obvious place in civilian economies.

South Africa and Georgia both provide instructive case studies. After apartheid, using the South African example, the labor force had to absorb, integrate or demobilize personnel from competing military and paramilitary structures. Thousands of former combatants faced unemployment and uncertain futures, while the new South African National Defence Force itself eventually had to undergo substantial downsizing, and not only among white troops.

So what happens when the largest European land war in generations finally winds down? What will the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian servicemen do when the battlefield no longer needs them, and the economy cannot reintegrate them?

Many will also have significant trauma, both mental and physical, the former being far harder to identify, it is an unfortunate fact that many former combatants will have developed a taste for killing.

And that is where the story becomes considerably more uncomfortable.

In 2024, UNODC and international organized-crime specialists were already examining the possibility that Ukraine’s enormous post-war veteran population could become a source of organized-crime risk—not because veterans were inherently criminal, but because demobilization, weapons proliferation, inadequate reintegration and the availability of trained manpower could create conditions attractive to criminal networks.

Have Gun, Will Travel is an old American expression, but it may acquire a new geopolitical meaning in the aftermath of the Ukraine war. The world already has a market for soldiers, military trainers, private security personnel and combat veterans. Africa, the Middle East and other conflict zones have repeatedly demonstrated the demand for experienced men with battlefield skills.

Will wealthy states, such as the Gulf monarchies, Western governments, private military companies and international security organizations see this enormous reservoir of experience as a manpower pool to be exploited? Almost certainly in fact, it is already happening in Africa, where Ukrainian “specialists” are aiding terrorist groups, particularly in the Sahel, aiming to overthrow governments that have been causing the French problems.

It is doubtful that so many of these veterans be recruited for legitimate security and peacekeeping missions but rather for the less visible wars conducted through proxies, contractors and allied forces as US Flag Draped in Dover Delaware is not politically expedient.

The next major Ukrainian export may not be agricultural products, weapons, or drones. But battlefield tested military experience.

There is a particularly interesting precedent in Africa. War on the Rocks warned several years ago that the eventual end of the Ukraine war could produce an influx of experienced personnel into African conflicts. And we can now see the reverse phenomenon too: Russia has recruited tens of thousands of foreign nationals into its war, including substantial numbers from Africa.

The fact that Ukrainian personnel or Ukrainian-trained capabilities are already appearing in African theaters would suggest that the post-war question isn’t simply what happens to Ukrainian veterans inside Ukraine? It is also who will recruit their expertise internationally?

The broader literature is already warning about exactly this transition: the Global Initiative has specifically examined organized-crime risks surrounding Ukraine’s eventual veteran population.

Demand for armed warm bodies

That does not require those governments to deliberately create a “mercenary army.” Governments already have incentives to use contractors, partner forces, local auxiliaries and allied personnel when they don’t want to commit their own regular forces.

The postwar Ukrainian veteran question is potentially a major international-security story in its own right.

“The postwar disposition of Ukraine’s enormous veteran population could become one of the most important security questions of the post-war period. History shows that when large numbers of highly trained combatants are simultaneously demobilized, economically marginalized and connected to international illicit markets, some will inevitably find employment in private warfare, political militias, transnational security networks and organized crime.”

Africa provides some very strong precedents

This has happened repeatedly in Africa. Research on Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe found that poorly designed demobilization and reintegration programs could themselves create later security problems.

And the phenomenon isn’t limited to Africa. Research on Colombia found that demobilization of armed groups could increase some forms of crime—particularly robbery—where former combatants were not successfully reintegrated.

Ukraine could produce a much larger version of the problem

This is where the argument becomes interesting.

Ukraine is potentially different in scale, technological sophistication and international connectivity. A future Ukrainian demobilization could involve enormous numbers of veterans. One recent analysis by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime estimates that Ukraine could eventually have up to nine million veterans, alongside millions of displaced people and refugees.

Obviously, nine million does not mean nine million armed or unemployed men. Most veterans will simply return to civilian life. But even a tiny percentage becoming involved in illicit activity could constitute a significant population.

The Financial Times reported that Colombian criminals have sought to send people into Ukraine to acquire advanced drone expertise and bring that knowledge back to criminal organizations in Colombia, and it is now becoming apparent the Mexican cartels are following suit.

The post-Soviet precedent is important too

There is another historical analogy that may be even more relevant than Africa: the breakup of the Soviet Union.

When the USSR collapsed, large numbers of trained military personnel suddenly found themselves outside a functioning Soviet military system. Some went into private security and legitimate military contracting; others became involved in mercenary activity. Former Soviet military personnel subsequently appeared in conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.

Ukraine is producing veterans with skills that did not exist at anything like today’s scale in previous wars—particularly FPV/drone warfare, electronic warfare and battlefield intelligence.

But there is another elephant in the room. The combat in Ukraine has been brutal, well beyond anything else seen in recent decades. Combined with the violently racist nationalist indoctrination by the Ukrainian government, this has created a large number of emotionally traumatised young men and women, for whom killing comes natural.

If enough of these individuals are recruited into the worlds conflict zones, either by state actors or the underworld and terrorists, the results will be absolutely horrific in terms of war crimes and brutality, as evidenced by the massacre of civilians during the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, and now in Africa.

Those hoping to profit from the monster they have created may well find its teeth searching for them.

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Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist, BSc, MSc, based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union

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September 26, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Militarism, War Crimes | Africa, Ukraine