Pro-Kremlin reporters lionize the members of the group, named for the right-wing German classical composer Richard Wagner, as “musicians” in an “orchestra.” And Wagner is using glitzy advertising across Russia to sign up new members. Its efforts include recruitment campaigns in prisons.

“This site was liberated by the specialists from Wagner PMC, the famed ‘musicians’ of the famed ‘orchestra,’ ” war correspondent Evgeny Poddubny said as he toured the Vuhlehirska power station in the Donetsk region, for the Rossiya 1 channel. Poddubny was accompanied by a masked mercenary wearing a helmet emblazoned with a skull and two crossed swords.

“If before everyone pretended such people don’t exist in general … now everything is different,” wrote the administrator of Special Task Channel, a popular pro-Kremlin Telegram blog. “It is not some vague volunteers or the general armed forces that are pushing ahead against the Ukrainian military. It’s Wagner doing it.”