Russian media has, for the first time, openly mentioned the Wagner Group PMC as being active in Ukraine. I find this interesting because not acknowledging the Wagner Group gave Moscow some plausible deniability of Wagner's actions. That's no longer the case if, as the article states, Wagner fight as "equals alongside Russian troops and people's militia from the Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics":
Russian media outlets have begun openly mentioning the shadowy private military company, the Wagner Group.
The country's state media has always referred to the group indirectly or avoided mentioning it altogether. But they now appear to have broken the taboo.
British military intelligence says mercenaries from the Wagner Group have been deployed to eastern Ukraine.
The group has been active over the past eight years in Ukraine, Syria and African countries, and has repeatedly been accused of war crimes and human rights abuses.
On Wednesday, the main evening news bulletin on Russia's most popular TV station, state-run Rossiya 1, acknowledged that fighters from Wagner were involved in the war in Ukraine.
It featured the channel's war correspondent, Yevgeny Poddubny, reporting from the ruins of a power station in eastern Ukraine.
"The site has been liberated by specialists from the Wagner private military company - the musicians, the orchestra," Poddubny said, listing words used mainly on social media to denote Wagner.
This appears to be the first time that Wagner was mentioned by name by a state TV reporter in a news bulletin as a force active in Ukraine.
The same day, key pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda called Wagner "a legendary unit".
"This private military company, Wagner PMC, as these professional military are known, has long since become a Russian brand known across the whole world," the reporter said.
"They performed tasks both in Syria and Africa. They are now fighting in Donbas as equals alongside Russian troops and people's militia from the Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics."