Part of an investigation
This article is a part of the investigation The Shadow Fleet Mercenaries
- Russian mercenaries have been placed on board the shadow fleet to monitor and control the crew on the ships and force them to resist requests from NATO.
- Danwatch, together with international media in the collaboration Shadow Fleet Mercenaries, has reviewed over 2,000 crew lists and conducted interviews with mercenaries on hidden camera.
- At least 83 Russians with military and intelligence backgrounds have sailed on 65 different ships, mainly from May 2025 to February 2026.
- The soldiers come from, among others, the Wagner Group, which is known for an extreme readiness to use violence and has left behind a trail of human rights violations and war crimes.
A network of 83 Russian men is sailing secretly in the Baltic Sea.
They have backgrounds in the army, the intelligence services, and state and private security services.
Several of them have fought in Syria, Ukraine and Mali for, among others, the Wagner Group and other Russian private military organisations.
Together with international media outlets, Danwatch has reviewed more than 2,000 crew lists from the ships and made covert recordings of four soldiers. We can therefore now shed light on the Russian soldiers.
We can report that 18 of them have fought for the Wagner Group, and that several still share material closely linked to the notorious military group.
Five others are linked to the private military group Moran Security, and four work for Redut, which is de facto controlled by Russia’s intelligence services.
In addition, 18 people have fought in Russia’s armed forces, whilst the rest have backgrounds in Russia’s state or private security services.
The 83 Russians have sailed secretly through Denmark on 65 different ships over a period of 10 months. In total, they have passed through Danish waters 140 times.
Almost all of these voyages took place after May 2025.
About the investigation
- Shadow Fleet Mercenaries is an international collaboration several European countries.
- The media outlets have jointly reviewed more than 2,000 crew lists and identified Russian mercenaries on tankers who officially have no role there.
- The media outlets have had to process the information themselves for their stories, but have shared knowledge with one another.
- Dossier Center, an exiled Russian media outlet owned by Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, secured access to the central data.
- Behind the investigation are Danwatch, Dossier Center, Follow The Money, The Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, NDR, Delfi, OCCRP, SourceMaterial, Pointer, VRT NWS, Expressen and De Tijd.
The youngest is 29 and the oldest is 60. Their average age is 46.
With the help of leaked personal data and thorough analysis of their social media, we can see that a number of the soldiers have spent the past many years at war in several places around the world.
Travel records show that 26 of the 83 Russians have been deployed to Syria in recent years, whilst 13 of them have been at war in Ukraine. In addition, 22 of them have flown on military aircraft to secret destinations outside Russia.
Here, Danwatch provides a unique insight into some of Putin’s mercenaries sailing through Denmark.
War for more than a decade
On 11 September 2025, the ship Walrus was positioned a short distance off the Russian port city of Ust-Luga, located at the Russian end of the Gulf of Finland.
Here, two Russian soldiers quietly boarded the vessel. Presumably completely unexpected for the crew, apart from the captain, who had only been informed shortly beforehand.
A few days later, the ship set course for the Baltic Sea and Denmark with both oil and two secret soldiers on board.
One of them is this man named Ruslan.
With a Russian AK rifle slung across his bare chest, the soldier Ruslan stands beneath a concrete bridge in the eastern Ukrainian town of Stanytsia in the Luhansk region.
“NO TO FASCISM!!!” is painted on the concrete foundation beneath him, and right next to it is written “KILL THE UKRAINIANS”.
The image was shared on Ruslan’s own profile on the Russian social media platform Vkontakte in 2022, but the writing on the concrete casting says 2014, when the first hostilities in eastern Ukraine began.
A review of the soldier Ruslan’s social media, payslips, work and travel records paints a picture of a man who has been at war for nearly a decade.
In 2016, he shared this photo, in which he poses in front of a civilian car with Ukrainian number plates.
It began in 2014 in the town of Stanytsia in eastern Ukraine, and it ended on a dark fleet tanker.
Incidentally, in 2016 he was convicted of fraud. Two years later, he was punished for committing vandalism.
An analysis of leaked personal data about Ruslan shows that he was in fact sentenced to prison. Nevertheless, leaked travel data from Russia’s military shows that he was at war again during the period when he was supposed to be behind bars.
In both 2015 and 2019, Ruslan was flown to eastern Ukraine by the Russian Air Force. Most recently, in 2023, he was flown to Ukraine again, this time officially as a soldier in Russia’s full-scale invasion.
That same year, he was awarded the Order of Courage, one of the highest honours a Russian soldier can receive.
From Syria to the Øresund
In the Syrian city of Homs, the mercenary Viktor stood posing in front of a burgundy Citroën Type 23.
Behind him was a white car that closely resembled a UN vehicle, but which was in fact a makeshift combat vehicle with a machine gun mounted on top.
According to leaked personal data from the Wagner Group, Viktor was deployed to Syria on 17 May 2017. The photo from Homs was shared on his social media in 2021.
Viktor switched from Wagner to the private military group Redut, which is controlled by Russia’s defence and intelligence services. After Syria, he went to the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine to fight.
In 2025, he became one of the many mercenaries sailing with the dark fleet. He has himself shared photos in which he poses on the dark fleet vessel Kira K whilst on board as a soldier.
Before he went to war and joined the dark fleet, he was involved in a number of criminal cases. In both 1998 and 1999, he was arrested for driving under the influence.
In 2000, he was imprisoned for an aggravated robbery involving a knife, and in 2006 he was implicated in a drug case.
Born in Ukraine, fights for Russia
With the pyramids in the background, Sergei M took a photo of himself in a car park in Cairo.
He had probably arrived on a dark fleet tanker shortly beforehand, where, according to the crew lists, he was registered as either “extra crew” or “technician”.
Twice, he sailed from the Gulf of Finland through Denmark before ending up in Egypt.
An analysis of his social media shows that he has been employed by the Russian police and served in the Russian Air Force.
He has also shared photos of himself armed with a Russian AK rifle and wearing a uniform. It is not possible to pinpoint his exact location, but an analysis suggests that the photo was taken somewhere in Syria.
Sergei was born in Odessa, Ukraine, when it was part of the Soviet Union. He has a chequered criminal past and has been convicted of several offences involving theft and violence.
Unit commander at Wagner
From 2017 to 2023, the soldier Yuri travelled on Russian military transport aircraft 20 times. He has been in Syria, Georgia and several locations in Ukraine.
Among other places, he was in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol during the Russian siege, when the city was almost levelled to the ground.
More than 8,000 people were killed in the Russian attacks on the city.
Before Yuri took part in the Russian siege of Mariupol, he first served as a combat engineer and later as a unit commander for a unit in the Wagner Group in Syria.
He enlisted under the Wagner Group’s black banners on 27 January 2017.
However, in photos from 2016 and earlier, he is seen posing in both Russian police and camouflage uniforms.
In addition, he appears in a photo wearing a uniform from the OMON unit, one of the Russian police’s special forces.
Weapons, weapons, weapons
For at least 20 years, a soldier named Sergei L has led a life surrounded by weapons.
Sergei has served both as an officer in the Russian police’s organised crime unit and been deployed with the Russian army.
In addition, he travelled on several military transports from Russia to Syria in 2023.
Not much more is known about his presence in Syria, but he appears with weapons and in uniform in several photos taken in Russia.
Experts express concern
Danwatch has revealed the extent of Putin’s secret soldiers in the Baltic Sea. It is a story that several experts describe as worrying.
They warn of acts of sabotage and hybrid attacks targeting Denmark, and point out that the soldiers come from groups known for being brutal and violent.
Read the disclosure here and gain insight into what the soldiers are doing in Denmark.
