“Unfortunately, the news about Aleksei’s death is true. It happened today,” TASS news agency quoted the player’s father Ivan Bugayev as telling the Sport24 news outlet.

RIA news agency quoted Bugayev’s agent, Anton Smirnov, as saying intense fighting had made it impossible to retrieve Bugayev’s body for burial.

Bugayev, dead at age 43, played two matches for the Russian national team in the 2004 European championship and also played for Moscow sides Torpedo and Lokomotiv as well as other provincial sides.

He ended his career in 2010 at the age of 29.

In September Bugayev was sentenced by a court in southern Russia to nine and a half years in prison on drug trafficking charges.

He later declared his intention to sign up to fight in the Ukraine war.

Russian authorities actively recruit in prisons for the conflict.