CIC urges Truth, Accountability, and Protection for Communities Harmed by Drugs, Weapons, Organized Crime, Corruption, and War.
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr., Ihanktonwan and Chickasaw Nations
For Immediate Release: WHITE ROCK, British Columbia — June 30, 2026 — The Continental Indigenous Council today issued a formal public response to the June 29, 2026 Russia Today (RT) report concerning allegations attributed to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service that Ukrainian authorities may be facilitating narcotics trafficking from Latin America into Europe, including through the Odesa region, and that criminal networks may be seeking access to wartime weapons markets.
The Continental Indigenous Council emphasizes that these are extremely serious allegations involving war, drugs, weapons, organized crime, corruption, public resources, international security, and the safety of communities far beyond Europe. Because of their seriousness, the Council states that such claims must not be accepted without evidence, dismissed without examination, or used as propaganda by any side.
Instead, the Council is calling for a truthful, independent, and transparent international investigation by all sides.
“These allegations are too serious to ignore and too dangerous to be used as political weapons,” the Council stated. “If they are true, there must be accountability. If they are false or exaggerated, that must also be exposed. If partial truths are being used for propaganda, that too must be revealed. The only responsible path is independent investigation, public transparency, and truth from all sides.”
The Continental Indigenous Council traces its formal public continental establishment to October 6–8, 1978, at White Swan, on the Yakama Nation, where Indigenous representatives from the United States, Canada, Alaska, and many Tribal Nations came together in prayer, consultation, unity, and service. Since that time, the Council’s work has continued for nearly five decades, strengthening Indigenous unity, supporting healing from colonial and intergenerational trauma, uplifting youth and families, honoring elders and women, building bridges among Nations, and working with allied Indigenous movements across the Americas.
The Council stated that the issue raised in the RT report is not distant from Indigenous Peoples. It directly affects Indigenous communities throughout the Americas, where Mexican cartels and other organized criminal networks have already brought terrible suffering through drugs, weapons, intimidation, trafficking, violence, corruption, addiction, and fear.
“When organized criminal networks become stronger through international war, weapons markets, trafficking routes, drones, military technology, or political protection, the consequences return directly to our families, our youth, our women, our elders, our homelands, and our future generations,” the Council stated. “This must stop.”
The Continental Indigenous Council is not asking the world to believe any intelligence claim simply because it has been made. Rather, it is calling on the world to investigate the allegations because the consequences are too severe to ignore.
If wartime weapons, money, drones, narcotics routes, military knowledge, or black-market systems are strengthening cartels and criminal networks, then Indigenous communities, border communities, rural communities, and vulnerable families across the Americas will be among those who suffer first and suffer most.
“Truth is not the possession of any one nation,” the Council stated. “Truth must be independently established, publicly verified, and courageously acted upon.”
The Continental Indigenous Council is therefore calling for an independent international investigation into all credible allegations concerning drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, organized crime, corruption, mercenary recruitment, wartime profiteering, and the exploitation of ports, borders, refugee movements, and humanitarian corridors.
The Council further stated that any single government, military alliance, intelligence agency, media institution, or political bloc must not control such an investigation. It should include independent international investigators, organized crime specialists, drug trafficking experts, weapons-tracing authorities, human rights observers, public health leaders, peacebuilders, and representatives from affected communities, including Indigenous Peoples whose territories and families are directly harmed by cartel violence and trafficking.
The Council is especially concerned by any possibility that weapons, money, military technology, narcotics routes, or criminal alliances connected to war may be strengthening cartels or other violent groups that harm communities in the Americas.
If nation-state policies, military transfers, covert networks, corrupt officials, or wartime black markets strengthen cartels and criminal organizations, then the suffering does not remain on the battlefield. It comes home to the streets, the borders, the villages, the reservations, the barrios, the towns, and the families.
“The world has the right to ask hard questions,” the Council stated. “Where are the weapons going? Who is profiting? Are criminal networks exploiting the war? Are drug routes being expanded through the chaos of conflict? Are cartels gaining access to weapons, drones, military training, or black-market systems through wartime corruption? Are vulnerable people being sacrificed while powerful interests benefit?”
The Council stressed that these questions must be asked without hatred toward any people and without allowing truth to be captured by propaganda.
“These questions must be asked because human life is sacred, and because the safety of our communities is greater than any political narrative,” the Council stated.
The Continental Indigenous Council also emphasized that allegations are not the same as proven facts. Russian intelligence has made serious claims.
Those claims must be examined. If they are true, there must be accountability. If they are false or exaggerated, that must also be exposed. If partial truths are being used for political manipulation, then that, too, must be revealed.
For Indigenous Peoples, the Council emphasized, this matter is not abstract. Indigenous communities know what happens when destructive forces enter the sacred circle of community life.
Many communities continue to suffer from the effects of forced displacement, broken treaties, residential and boarding school trauma, poverty, racism, addiction, violence, incarceration, family separation, and intergenerational wounds.
“We know what happens when drugs poison the young, when weapons terrorize families, when corruption destroys trust, and when fear becomes a tool of control,” the Council stated. “Every child, every elder, every mother, every father, every woman, every man, every Two-Spirit relative, and every community has the sacred right to live free from drugs, guns, gangs, trafficking, war, intimidation, and terror.”
The Continental Indigenous Council is calling for a worldwide circle of responsibility that includes independent investigators, Indigenous Peoples, community leaders, spiritual leaders, public health workers, honest law enforcement, peacebuilders, families, youth, and elders.
No one nation can solve this alone. No intelligence agency, military alliance, media platform, or political party can replace the deeper work of truth, accountability, protection, and restoration.
The Council is also calling for a deeper response to addiction and organized crime. Addiction is not only a criminal issue. It is often connected to trauma, despair, poverty, loneliness, grief, injury, and hopelessness.
Where there is addiction, there must be prevention, treatment, family support, cultural renewal, and healing. Where there is organized crime, there must be accountability. Where there is corruption, there must be truth. Where there is violence, there must be protection. Where there is propaganda, there must be independent verification.
The Council emphasized that its statement is not made from hatred toward Russia, Ukraine, Mexico, Europe, the United States, or any people.
“We speak from responsibility,” the Council stated. “We speak because Mother Earth is one living home, and the suffering of one people cannot be separated from the suffering of all peoples. When war becomes a marketplace for drugs, weapons, corruption, and criminal profit, the whole Human Family is endangered.”
The Continental Indigenous Council concluded its press release with a call for truth, protection, accountability, and healing:
“Let there be no retaliation, no intimidation, no hatred, and no further harm. Let there be truth. Let there be an independent investigation. Let there be protection for families and communities.
Let there be accountability for those who profit from drugs, weapons, corruption, propaganda, and war. And let there be a path of healing and restoration for those who have lost their way, so that they may return to right relationship with their Creator, their families, their communities, Mother Earth, and the sacred circle of life.”
Choose Peace. Live Peace. End War.
With Warm, Respectful, and Loving Greetings,
Continental Indigenous Council
Media Contact: Faith Standing Alone
**[email protected]
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