Russia says West plotting Latin America arms scheme

The statement did not name the Western country it accused or provide public evidence backing the allegations. Russian intelligence said the goal is to damage Moscow's ties with Latin American states and push their governments closer to Western policy on Russia.

As of Monday, the governments of Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela had not responded publicly. Ukraine also had not issued an official reaction.

The accusation follows a similar claim from late June, when Russian officials said Kyiv had ties to Mexican cartels. The Ukrainian Embassy in Mexico rejected that allegation at the time, calling it part of a Russian disinformation campaign and denying any connection to Mexican drug trafficking groups.

In the final part of its statement, the Foreign Intelligence Service placed 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 agency cited as precedents the April 2022 Bucha massacre, which it called a "bloody staging," and the 1939 Gleiwitz incident, a false-flag operation by Nazi Germany before the invasion of Poland.