Several Dozen Armed Convicts Who Fled Front In ‘LPR’ Cause Stir In Rostov

The militants in civilian clothes and with other people's documents are moving around in several cars.

39 armed servicemen who were members of the Storm Z detachment fled from the occupied Lysychansk, Luhansk region of Ukraine. All of them are former prisoners who went to fight under the contract, the 161 portal writes with a reference to the law enforcement agencies.

During the escape, a soldier from the Ministry of State Security of the self-proclaimed “LPR” was killed as he was trying to stop the deserters.

According to the all-points bulletin, armed convicts travel in several cars, they may be in civilian clothes and with other people's documents.

Police officers of the Rostov region have strengthened patrol posts at checkpoints with the LDPR. The information was also conveyed to the heads of administrations of the border territories.

In February, the CNN channel reported on the Storm detachment, formed by the Russian Ministry of Defense for the war with Ukraine. According to journalists, the unit was attached to the armed forces of the self-proclaimed LPR, and consisted of prisoners recruited by the department in Russian prisons.

At the end of April, the Gulagu.net project posted a video message from Stepan Aleinik, a member of the Storm Z detachment, recruited by the Ministry of Defense in the penal colony #25 in Syktyvkar. The serviceman said that they were abandoned in the village of Vodyanoe in the DPR “without any support from the army” and “sent to be slaughtered like cannon fodder”, and if they refuse, “they threatened to shoot us dead”. “No money is paid to us, we were simply thrown there to die. We have been under shelling for a month now. <…> Out of a group of 60 people, 23 remained,” Aleinik noted and asked the President of Russia for help.

Prior to this, the fighters of the Storm detachment posted an appeal to Vladimir Putin back in March. They also talked about the difficult situation in the village of Vodiane, complaining about extortions, anti-retreat units, a paid hospital and the loss of more than 300 people.