Russian Wagner deserter flees to Norway across Arctic border
A Russian posing as a former mercenary of the paramilitary group Wagner managed to escape by crossing the Russian-Norwegian border in the Arctic; he is going to seek asylum in Norway.
Andrei Medvedev, 26, was arrested after illegally crossing the border overnight from Thursday to Friday, his Norwegian lawyer Brynjulf Risnes told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “He is ready to talk about his experience in the Wagner group to people who investigate war crimes”he said.
In an interview broadcast by the NGO Gulagu, the man who claims to be a deserter explains that his contract was extended against his will, after several months of fighting in Ukraine in the service of this Russian organization led by businessman Yevgueni Prigojine .
“I was under the threat of being kidnapped, of being assassinated, of being shot or, worse, of being condemned to the mass, like Noujine”an ex-convict and Wagner deserter whose gruesome execution, using a mace, was caught on camera and made public in mid-November.
Claiming to have been the leader of a section of ten men, he recounts having crossed a frozen river, the Pasvik, which separates Russia from Norway in the Far North, with a Russian patrol on his heels.
“I heard dogs barking, I turned around, I saw people with flashlights, about 150 meters away, running in my direction”he said.
“I heard two shots, the bullets whistled from very far (…). I ran on the ice with the help of house lights, for about two kilometres”he continued.
According to his lawyer, he then went to see Norwegians explaining to them that he had crossed the border illegally, before being arrested by the police shortly afterwards.
AFP was unable to independently confirm that the young Russian had fought under Wagner.