- Andrei Medvedev is looking for asylum in Norway after crossing the northern border from Russia.
- He says Wagner soldiers were pushed into battle with minimal guidance and brutally treated.
- Two convicts who refused to fight were shot in front of everyone and buried in their trenches.
In an exclusive interview on Monday, a former Wagner mercenary claimed that the cruelty he experienced in Ukraine was what ultimately motivated him to desert.
Andrei Medvedev told Anderson Cooper from Oslo, Norway, where he is looking for asylum after crossing Norway’s northern border from Russia, that Wagner soldiers were frequently pushed into battle with minimal guidance and that the company’s treatment of unwilling recruits was brutal.
He claims that they would round up non-combatants and shoot them in front of visitors. Two convicts who refused to engage in combat were brought in, shot in front of everyone, and buried right there in the trenches dug by the trainees.
Wagner has not responded to a request for comment, and has been unable to independently confirm Wagner’s account.
The 26-year-old joined Wagner as a volunteer and claims to have previously served in the Russian military. Less than ten days after committing to his service in July 2021, he travelled into Ukraine to serve close to Bakhmut, the frontline city in the Donetsk region. The mercenary organization has become an important participant in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dmitry Utkin and Russian millionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, the group’s founders, are who Medvedev claimed he directly reported to.
He refers to Prigozhin as “the devil.” If he was a Russian hero, he would have taken a gun and run with the soldiers,” Medvedev said.
Medvedev had previously served in his company, according to Prigozhin, who also stated that he “should have been prosecuted for trying to torture inmates.”
According to Medvedev, he did not wish to remark on his own actions while fighting in Ukraine.
According to Medvedev, Wagner’s tactical plan was nonexistent, and the forces made up plans as they went along.
“There were zero effective strategies. We recently received orders regarding the location of the enemy. There were no clear directives about how we were to conduct ourselves. We simply laid out our step-by-step plan of action. What kind of shifts would we work, who would fire first? Our issue was how things would turn out, the man added.
In a risky defection that he claims saw him avoid capture “at least ten times” and avoid Russian authorities’ guns, Medvedev spoke to from Oslo. He claimed that he entered Norway by flying over an icy lake while wearing white camouflage to blend in.
After seeing soldiers being used as cannon fodder on the sixth day of his deployment in Ukraine, he decided he did not want to serve there again.
When convicts were permitted to join, the number of soldiers under his charge increased from the initial 10 men, according to him. “More dead bodies were discovered, and people kept pouring in. I managed to control a sizable number of people in the end,” he claimed. “I was unable to count them all. They were moving around constantly. More dead bodies, more prisoners, more prisoners, more dead bodies.
According to advocacy groups, when inmates recruited, they were promised that if they perished in battle, their families would get a payout of five million rubles ($71,000).
However, Medvedev claimed that in practice “nobody wanted to pay that kind of money.” Many Russians who perished in battle in Ukraine, he claimed, were “simply labeled missing.”
During the interview, Medvedev became emotional at times and told that he observed bravery on both sides of the conflict.
I observed bravery on both sides, both our boys and the Ukrainian side. I simply want people to be aware of that, he said.
In order to assist in prosecuting Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, he wishes to immediately relate his experience.
The people in Russia will rise up sooner or later, the propaganda will lose its effectiveness, and all of our leaders will be up for grabs. A new leader will then arise.
Wagner is frequently referred to as Putin’s undercover soldiers. Since its founding in 2014, it has increased its global influence and has been charged with war crimes in Africa, Syria, and the Ukraine.
When asked if he worries about what happened to another Wagner defector, Yevgeny Nuzhin, who was killed with a sledgehammer in front of the camera, Medvedev responded that Nuzhin’s passing gave him the confidence to go.
I would just say that it strengthened my resolve to depart, he said.
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