In an interview in December he stated that he knew that ten Wagner mercenaries who refused to return to the front were executed
After fleeing to Norway, a former Wagner mercenary is now a valuable witness who can shed light on the workings of the Russian paramilitary organization and provide information to substantiate charges against Moscow.
Despite bullets flying past him and Russian soldiers chasing him with dogs, 26-year-old Andrei Medvedev managed to cross the Pasvik, a currently frozen river on Russia’s border with Norway, last week.
In a video posted this weekend by the non-governmental organization Gulagu.net, the Russian, who appears with a pixelated face and cropped hair, says he fought in Ukraine, leading a group of about a dozen men in Wagner’s service.
He claims he deserted the team when his contract with Wagner was extended against his will in November.
“He is an interesting person, especially as he is a first-hand witness inside the Wagner organization (…), even in a possible trial after the war for the atrocities committed in Ukraine,” said Tor Bukfoll, director of the Norwegian Research Institute for the defense.
“He may have been in Bakhmut,” a town in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces have been trying to capture for months, “and he can tell things from the inside that no one else can,” Bukfoll explained.
In an interview with The Insider website in December, Alexei Medvedev stated that he knows that ten Wagner mercenaries who refused to return to the front were executed. He had added that he is in possession of the video showing the execution of two of them.
In fact, Medvedev was allegedly under the orders of Yevgeny Nuzin, an ex-convict and deserter from Wagner, who was killed with a sledgehammer in mid-November, an incident that was filmed and released to the public.
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Upon his arrival in Norway Medvedev was arrested and is expected to testify or has already testified to the authorities, both the immigration service and the criminal investigation service (Kripos) involved in the international investigation into war crimes in Ukraine.
“He himself has stated that he was a member of Wagner and it is important for Kripos to gather more information about this period,” Norwegian police explained on Tuesday.
His Norwegian lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, said his client “is ready to talk about his experience at Wagner to the people investigating war crimes.”
According to him, Medvedev was in possession of several USBs when he defected to Norway.
“What he has to say is interesting because we don’t have many direct testimonies from Wagner soldiers, but two things stand out: first of all, Wagner’s brutality has been notorious for a long time, even before the war in Ukraine, as for example in Syria, where the organization was killing prisoners,” Bukfoll noted.
“Also Medvedev seems to have been low in the ranks of the organization so it is not likely that he will make revelations about what is happening at the highest levels,” the researcher added.
For her part, Wagner, who has recruited many prisoners from Russia to fight in Ukraine, commented ironically on Medvedev’s allegations.
The man was given a two-year suspended sentence for theft and eventually served part of his sentence after a confrontation with a representative of the Russian authorities, his lawyer admitted.
“He should be tried for trying to use violence against prisoners,” commented Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Wagner. “Until now he was on the wanted list. Be careful, he is very dangerous.”
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