Quick 🧵/ Igor Igorevich Stepanov, 56 years old, former marine, was killed in Ukraine. What’s interesting is the fact that he was recently recruited by "Wagner PMC" and this fact was publicly revealed by local media in Volokonovka, Belgorod region, where he lived ⬇️. 
A large obituary of Stepanov written by his son (on the right on the photo above) was published on Sunday. It says that Stepanov was posthumously awarded with a Wagner's medal for "blood and bravery". (Source: archive.ph/zUDuf)
According to the obituary, in 1999 Stepanov was offered a position of the "instructor" in the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade, after several years he moved to a landing-assault company there, sailed many seas and even fought pirates in Somalia. He retired in 2011.
Obituary says Stepanov was willing to fight when the war in Ukraine broke up, but was refused to go as a volunteer because of his age. "Then he was offered a position of an instructor in a private military company", his son writes.
Stepanov died in Bakhmut on Sep. 24th, when Ukrainian army reportedly repelled several Russian attacks there. There were many mentions of "Wagner PMC" mercenaries fighting there, including freshly recruited prisoners.
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1587022437283233795
Was Stepanov (on the left on the photo below) recruited by Wagner to "train" those former prisoners? May be, though I think they don't get a lot of training, as well as Russian "mobiks".
Volokonovka, where Stepanov lived before joining Wagner, is just 40 km from Soloti, one of the main Russian hubs close to UA border, where new recruits are being deployed before sending them to Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/kromark/status/1579878847662915584
The fact that local media openly inform their readers about a Wagnerite death would surprise me much a month ago, but looks like now things become more transparent, after Evgeny Prigozhin admitted his connection with PMC and started to act as an independent political figure. /END
As @solarisveritas correctly notes, reporting Wagner KIAs openly became quite common since the middle of October.
https://twitter.com/solarisveritas/status/1587140470123433984
There’s at least 1 more Wagnerite from another Belgorod region town, Alexey Mitchenko, who was killed on the same day as Stepanov, Sep. 24th. Reports on SM came on Oct. 7 (archive.ph/3RFi7), now "big" local media publish articles about him freely. bel.ru/news/2022-10-3…
Together with @pustota we analyzed dozens of articles in Russian media about Wagnerites’ deaths. There’s a clear pattern: after Prigozhin admitted that he created "Wagner PMC" (Sep. 26) Russian media indeed don’t hesitate to openly attribute those killed to Wagner any more. ⬇️
Some exceptions apply, of course, like infamous Vladimir "Vakha" Andanov (on the photo,repoted KIA in June with open reference to Wagner) or Alexey Konischev from Ekaterinburg (reported KIA on August 12 as a Wagnerite by major regional media, see the link) e1.ru/text/world/202…
Still, there are many more "official" media reports about the deaths of Wagner mercenaries now – we counted more than 15 since the end of September VS nearly the same number from Feb. till Sep. Here’s the full story, Google Translate for your language! svoboda.org/a/konveyer-sme…
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