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They are identified as pardoned former convicts, returned from the front in Ukraine after joining Wagner from prison. Four of the men said they were personally recruited by Yevgeny Prigozhin as he toured Russia's prison system to bolster his private army. Borovkov had heard from inmates in St Petersburg that Prigozhin was traveling from prison to prison in search of recruits. One of the convict recruits told Reuters he traveled to a Wagner training camp in the Russian-controlled part of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region. Earlier this month the State Duma passed a law making it a crime to "discredit" Wagner fighters.