The Violent Homecoming of Russian Convicts Freed to Fight in Ukraine

In early August, police in Russia’s rural northwest were called to the scene of a mass murder. In the charred remains of two homes set ablaze hours earlier, they found the burned, mutilated bodies of six local residents.
News of the massacre shook Derevyannoye, a village of 1,200 people, where sailing boats bob in Onega Lake and the border with Finland is a three-hour drive away. What was most shocking was the identity of one of the two suspects: a repeat offender freed from a maximum-security prison to fight in Ukraine.