The Russian Interior Ministry has put a "wanted" notice out on six purported members of the Vagner mercenary group who may have escaped from a training camp in an occupied region of Ukraine over a week ago.
The Donday Russian information site suggests the fugitives include three Uzbek nationals, a Kyrgyz national, a Belarusian, and one Russian national, although RFE/RL has not been able to corroborate that report.
Some reports say the men are armed.
The ministry declined to provide details on the six, who were said to have fled a Vagner training camp in the eastern Ukrainian Luhansk region where Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists hold a wide swath of territory.
The head of the Vagner group, Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, also declined to give more information other than to say that "a lot of scoundrels are being detained" in cities in the Ukrainian regions Russia claimed to have annexed in late September.
Vagner has reportedly provided thousands of paid soldiers to help Russian forces in the 10-month-old full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has estimated that up to 40,000 Russian prisoners who traded service for shortened imprisonment may be serving in Russia's mercenary forces fighting in Ukraine.
