military-veterans-to-kremlin-come-clean-about-syria-mission-idUSKBN1JV2QL

But it does say they were expressly recruited for ‘duty as civilians’ over there. ‘Duty as civilians’ tells me they are a SOF type group which wants to keep their presence a secret except the ‘secrets’ being put out. Everyone knows they’re there. Russia should treat them as injured military and give them what is required to survive. Knowing Russia these days it’ll be an injection that kills them at dinner time with their family

They like to stick with their ability to claim “plausible deniability” at all costs including the cost to their people.

Sounds like tacit acknowledgement that the government officially or unofficially (black ops?) approved mercenary participation.