On the night of last Thursday, a former commander of the 1st department of the 4th platoon of the 7th assault department of the so-called Wagner mercenary force managed to leave Russia and flee to Norway. Andrei Medvedev reported on his adventurous escape in an interview with the legal protection organization Gulagu.net (No to the Gulag). Near the Russian border town of Nikel, he crossed the Russian-Norwegian border over the frozen Pasvikelva River. A white bathrobe not only helped him get over the barbed wire, but also evade pursuers from the Russian border guards, he said.
Now Medvedev is in a migration center in Oslo and is hoping for political asylum. It is his insider knowledge that makes him interesting for both European law enforcement and secret services. At the same time, his knowledge is the reason why he had to flee Russia.
“I’m being hunted by my former employer,” he says in his first interview from Oslo. What is meant is the Wagner mercenary group. “I was threatened with being shot or the same fate as Nushin, who was killed with a hammer.” Wagner mercenary Yevgeny Nushin was executed on camera in November for surrendering to Ukrainian forces. Before he escaped, Nushin was a member of the department that Medvedev was in charge of. “I’m afraid of dying in agony,” says Medvedev now.
Medvedev appeared in public for the first time last November. At that time he contacted the activists of Gulagu.net, who are primarily dedicated to fighting corruption and torture in Russian prisons. “In war, the mercenaries don’t have first and last names, they only know each other by combat names,” Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Ossechkin reported at the time from his conversations with Medvedev. The 26-year-old fought in the war under the name Dzhoga. But then he decided to break the regime of silence and obedience.
In a short video, Medvedev explained that he had signed a four-month contract with the Wagner troupe on July 6, 2022. When the contract expired, he wanted to leave the supposedly private mercenary group. But then he found out that the management had extended his contract without his consent – first by six, then by eight months.
However, by this time Medvedev was no longer ready to go into battle for the Wagner squad. The video shows him demonstratively marching towards the newly built headquarters of the mercenaries in Saint Petersburg and handing his badge to the surprised guard. “All the best,” Medvedev wishes him and leaves.
The search for Medvedev began the next day. The head of the Wagner troupe, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was immediately helped by the Interior Ministry of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, the Federal Security Service and the criminal police, Gulagu.net reported. “But as is so often the case with the mafiosi: getting in costs a ruble, getting out costs your life,” Gulagu.net director Ossechkin commented on the situation at the time.
Meanwhile, Andrei Medvedev went into hiding. The big bang followed in mid-December. Gulagu.net published a long interview with the former Wagner commander – and he confirms what has long been suspected: the Wagner troupe not only spread terror themselves. Terror also rules in the ranks of the mercenaries. He knows of at least ten executions, said Medvedev. He saw some with his own eyes.
With the recruitment of prisoners from Russian prisons last summer, the execution of objectors and deserters also began. The prisoners were lured into the Wagner troupe with the promise of money and a pardon in six months. In order to demonstrate to them what happens in the event of a desertion, the mercenary leadership resorted to drastic measures.
“I witnessed several such moments, executions of convicts. They were led in front of the lines of the other prisoners and publicly executed for the purpose of intimidation,” Medvedev reported.
A special group of the security service of the Wagner troop is responsible for the executions. “Mjod” was her combat name, in German honey. Medvedev believes that this special group must consist of either retired or active FSB employees. He concludes this from the observation that they were able to cross the Russian border without being checked. Regular Wagner troops would have avoided any contact with this special group. Every touch was considered a “bad omen”.
The bodies of the executed would have been buried on the spot. Medvedev is certain that they would be classified as missing so that the bereaved would not have to pay out the promised money. The same fate often befalls fighters who die at the front.
Medvedev told Russian investigative outlet The Insider that he was in possession of a video showing the execution of Wagner mercenaries in the eastern Ukrainian city of Alchevsk. At the time of the interview, Medvedev was still on the run. If something happens to him, the video will be published, he promised at the time.
However, members of the Mjod unit not only executed those who refused to do so, but also Ukrainian prisoners, Medvedev said. The former mercenary recalled the fate of four Ukrainian soldiers who were captured during the attack on Bakhmut. “The boys surrendered, they actually posed no threat. (…) We handed them over to the platoon leader. They were questioned but had no information. Then the Mjod group arrived. The prisoners were near the shot in the village of Klinowoe.” The village is about six kilometers from Bakhmut.
In his first interview after fleeing to Norway, Medvedev said he hopes that his testimony will play a key role in the investigation into the Wagner troupe. “I really hope that my reports will help many mothers, sisters, brothers, children to find their loved ones,” he told Gulagu.net. “Maybe it will be possible to get some kind of revenge on the Wagner troupe for the deaths of loved ones.”
Meanwhile, Yevgeny Prigozhin himself confirmed that Medvedev served in his troops. The head of the mercenaries reported through his press service: “Yes, indeed, Andrei Medvedev worked in the Norwegian battalion of the private mercenary group Wagner, which is called Nidhogg because he had Norwegian citizenship. He must be prosecuted for attempted abuse of prisoners,” claims Prigozhin. “Be careful, he is very dangerous.”
Medvedev’s lawyer, Brynyulf Risnes, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK: “As far as I know, he has no Norwegian citizenship or any previous connection to Norway. That sounds like a strange explanation.”
In fact, Medvedev is from the Tomsk region. The man spent his childhood in an orphanage. His mother died and he never met his father. After his military service in the Russian army, he signed a contract and probably “participated in certain actions in Donbass” in 2014-2015, Vladimir Osechkin, the head of Gulagu.net, said on Monday.
After his service, Medvedev “ended up in prison” and was in one of the colonies in the Tomsk region until at least 2018. His detention would substantiate complaints the young man had filed against the Federal Penitentiary Service, a federal executive agency that oversees and controls detention facilities. After his release, he also took part in rallies against “slave labor conditions in the colonies”.
Medvedev is all the more astonished about the conditions in the Norwegian migration center: “I already said to the investigator: ‘Maybe you can really introduce such conditions in Russia!’ There’s a plasma TV hanging over the bed in my room. I have a shower, a toilet, a fridge,” enthused the former orphan in disbelief.
