Since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Colombian nationals have emerged as one of the most numerous foreign contingents serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the nationality that has suffered the highest number of casualties among foreign volunteers. Despite their prominence, the motivations driving Colombians to join the war effort remain poorly understood. Do their reasons for enlistment mirror those of earlier Western volunteers, or do they reflect distinct social, economic, and professional trajectories shaped by Colombia’s long experience of internal conflict? This article addresses this empirical gap by examining why up to 2,000 Colombians have reportedly joined Ukrainian military units since 2022. Drawing on a combination of in-person and remote interviews with Colombian veterans serving in Ukraine, the study seeks to explore the relative weight of economic considerations, professional military socialization, moral reasoning, and geopolitical perceptions in their decision-making processes. While financial incentives and employment prospects likely play a more visible role than in the case of many Western volunteers, we hypothesize that monetary motivations alone are insufficient to explain Colombian participation. Instead, a complex mix of professional identity, combat experience, perceived moral obligation, and opposition to Russian aggression likely shapes their engagement. By situating Colombian volunteers within the broader literature on foreign fighters, this article highlights both continuities and departures from earlier patterns of Western war volunteering. In doing so, it sheds light on what has become one of the most significant—and understudied—avenues of foreign recruitment in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.

The period between Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022 saw a progressive worsening of EU-Russia relations. An understanding of developments in this period is critical to clarifying reasons for Russia’s actions in 2022. The evolution of the EU’s eastern policy in that period and Russian reactions to NATO and US positions have been topics eliciting considerable scholarly analysis. Less studied are Russia’s reactions to the evolution of EU security policy. During this period the EU disavowed Russia as a strategic partner but did not engage a full-scale paradigm shift in terms of its view of the relationship. This paper undertakes an analysis of Russian media and government reactions to and discourse about EU policy developments in the fields of traditional security and energy security relations between 2014 and 2022. In the broader security dimension EU initiatives included the 2016 EU Global Strategy, the EU East Stratcom Task Force, and discussions surrounding the development of the EU Strategic Compass approved in March 2022. In the energy security sphere relevant EU policy developments included the EU Energy Security Strategy, development of the Energy Union, and various aspects of bilateral relations with EU member states. Disputes continued over implications for Russia of EU’s Third Energy Package and the South Stream pipeline project was cancelled in December 2014, while development of Nord stream 2 continued. The EU’s Green Agenda issued in 2019 also had implications for energy security relations with Russia, and some member states began to reduce their energy imports from Russia. The analysis works from constructivist theory and the concept of ontological security, which posit the importance of identity, ideas, and the manner in which interests are framed; it works from the assumption that Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022 reflected an evolution in the Russian framings of its relative vulnerability, energy relations and (inter)dependency, economic and military capabilities and security interests rather than a response to actual material threats. The paper seeks to understand the role that Russian understandings of EU policy actions and the evolution in EU policy played in its decision to attack Ukraine in 2022 as well as the mode and timing of that action. Based on an extensive search of media and government sources using the Integrum database, the study uses MAXQDA software to undertake a qualitative analysis of the material.

Jihadist terrorist propaganda continues to pose a persistent and adaptive threat to the security of the European Union in an increasingly complex European strategic environment. Although political and media attention has focused on the risks arising from high-intensity conventional warfare and territorial defence, jihadist actors have demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt to the digital environment. In particular, they exploit the fragmentation of the information ecosystem, the speed of content dissemination, and the use of decentralized digital platforms to maintain their propaganda activity.

This paper analyses jihadist propaganda as a key strategic tool for mobilization, radicalization, and legitimization of violence, assessing its impact on European security. The research is based primarily on direct and systematic observation of jihadist propaganda content during a research stay at CITCO, Spain’s competent authority for the removal of illegal content disseminated through open-source digital platforms, which allows for the identification of discursive patterns, recurring narratives, and communicative adaptation strategies. It examinates how these discourses incorporate narratives linked to international conflicts and processes of social polarization.

The study also analyses the implications of the European regulatory framework for the removal of terrorist content online, with particular attention to Regulation (EU) 2021/784 on combating the dissemination of terrorist content online. It assesses both its contributions in terms of speed of removal and cooperation with digital service providers, and its practical limitations in the face of jihadist actors’ ability to fragment, replicate, and redistribute propaganda in alternative digital ecosystems.

The research argues that the progressive deterioration of the European security environment has created a double challenge: 1) on the one hand, the reallocation of political, financial, and military resources toward conventional state threats; and 2) on the other hand, the risk of underestimating hybrid and unconventional threats such as jihadist propaganda, which have a cross-cutting impact on social cohesion, internal security, and democratic resilience. In this regard, it argues that the fight against terrorist propaganda must be coherently integrated into European strengthening cooperation between civilian and military actors.