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"This is a source from the volunteer movement, directly connected with the Vjun (Zabolotniy's call sign), the movement is monitoring information on all volunteers from Russia on the territory of Syria and Donbass ... I wish they were wrong, but so far the worst fears regarding his fate are confirmed," he said.

The claim threatens to draw attention to a potentially awkward development for the Kremlin, which has publicly limited Russia's military campaign there to air strikes but has been dogged by reports that it is secretly waging war on the ground through mercenaries working for a company called Vagner.

Working as a mercenary is illegal under Russian law.

But the brother of one of the apparent captives told RFE/RL that his brother had been fighting for Vagner, saying, "They send them to slaughter -- lure them with money and then abandon them -- because professional soldiers can't fight like they do."

On October 3, the IS propaganda arm Amaq published a video purporting to show two Russian soldiers captured in Syria. Both men appeared in grubby gray overalls with bruising on their face, one with a heavily swollen eye.
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'Sent To Slaughter Without Respect'

In comments to RFE/RL's Russian Service on October 4, Roman Tsurkanu said the man in the video is his brother, Grigory. He said his brother had traveled to the Middle East in May and was fighting for the private military contractor Vagner.

Tsurkanu said he believed his brother had joined Vagner to earn money to support his two children. He described a highly secretive arrangement in which fighters are required to keep their employment secret.

"If there even is a contract, then no one sees it, no one knows where it is kept. They sign a nondisclosure document. The only thing I know is that they describe everything beforehand: that [in the case of death] medals and money will be returned to relatives."

Roman Tsurkanu complained that his brother had superior combat skills but was used as cannon fodder. "I just don't understand why we keep contractors there, why we can't make our own elite troops from them,...why they use them like meat, and why it's those who have combat qualities, who are real fighters. What's more, it's illegal, they're sent to slaughter without respect."

Mercenaries are illegal in Russia, and rumors of the existence of Vagner have repeatedly been denied. In August, an image was posted on social media showing Putin meeting Dmitry Utkin, who has been identified in multiple reports as the founder of an unregistered private military-contracting agency called Vagner. Putin spokesman Peskov confirmed the authenticity of the photograph, which was reportedly taken at a Kremlin reception in December.