Russian police hunt armed convicts who fled mercenary training camp

telegraph: Six armed former convicts were on the run from police in Russia on Sunday after deserting a training centre in Ukraine run by the Kremlin-linked Wagner mercenary group.

The Russian authorities have posted leaflets around Rostov-on-Don, a city near the occupied areas of Ukraine, warning residents that the fugitives are dangerous.

“Residents must pay special attention to people in uniform. Personal safety measures must be observed,” the leaflets said.

The convicts-turned-mercenaries escaped from a Wagner Group training camp in the Luhansk region of occupied Ukraine on Dec 22.

They are likely among a recent batch of recruits that the mercenary outfit specifically signed up from prisons.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, sometimes referred to as “Putin’s chef” because of a catering contract he formerly held with the Kremlin, bankrolls the Wagner Group and he personally toured remote prisons to recruit tough drug dealers and murderers.

It was a simple deal. In return for signing up to fight in Ukraine, convicts were promised a pardon.

If they then deserted, they would be killed. And the Wagner Group has made good on this promise. In November, they released a video of one of their fighters smashing the head of a deserter with a sledgehammer. At the time, Mr Prigozhin praised the video as an “excellent directional piece of work”.

Through his catering company, Mr Prigozhin confirmed that six Wagner mercenaries were on the run but played down the danger.

“The National Guard, the police and the Wagner security services are always catching various kinds of armed people,” he said. “Many villains are being detained whom you don’t even need to know about. So sleep well.”

The Wagner Group has grown in prominence over the past 10 months by helping Russia’s army to fight in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

The Kremlin had viewed Wagner, which has been accused of human rights abuses, as a shadowy, deniable asset when operating in the Middle East and Africa, but it went mainstream last year and was allowed to recruit openly across Russia and also from its prisons.

Like the Russian army itself, the Wagner Group has suffered heavy losses in Ukraine. Some mercenaries have also complained of poor training and living conditions.

In December, another Wagner mercenary was arrested in Rostov after escaping from his unit in Donbas.