It has decided not to carry out the basic works of Vladimir Putin and his boss Yevgeny Prigojine in Ukraine. And for this, Andrei Medvedev has put a border between him and his former leaders, for fear that they seek to kill him to make him pay for his desertion. The ex-commander of a private Wagner militia unit, which is fighting in Ukraine alongside the Russian regular army, thus left Russian territory after refusing to rejoin as an officer of the mercenary group and entered Norway last Friday. There he applied for asylum.
Andrei Medvedev detailed his motivations and his exile in a telephone interview with Vladimir Osechkin. This was later uploaded to YouTube.
Vladimir Osechkin is the leader of Gulagu.net, the platform that helped Andrei Medvedev in his departure. CNN noticed the exchange on its site Tuesday and was able to discuss it with the activist.
“We do not try to justify our actions”
Questioned by the US media, Vladimir Osechkin, head of Gulagu.net, which helps opponents and dissidents of the Kremlin to settle abroad, stressed: “We are not trying to justify the actions of Andrei Medvedev in the Wagner group. But It must be understood that he decided to leave the Wagner group, considering that it was a terrorist organization that killed Russians and Ukrainians.”
The activist specified that his first contacts with the former Wagner officer date from the end of November, established through a friend. Vladimir Osechkine’s organization provided food, clothing and a phone to the mercenary who broke the ban and leased from him.
Disappointment
But how did this cadre of Evgeny Prigokhine’s murderous militia come to want to stay away from the fighting, to abandon Wagner and therefore Russia? In his conversation with Vladimir Osechkine, Andrei Medvedev mentioned his recruiting and then the birth of his doubts.
“I signed my contract with the group on July 6, 2022. I was appointed commander of the 1st squad of the 4th platoon of the 7th assault detachment. When we started integrating prisoners, the situation really changed inside Wagner. They stopped thinking about us. like human beings. We were just cannon fodder,” he said.
A conception that, of course, has a high human cost: Andrei Medvedev says that he lost “between 15 and 20 men” and recounts the shooting executions of prisoners who refused to participate in combat or accused of treason.
“I have not committed any crime”
Therefore, he has no intention of staying with his employer. Except that at the expiration of his contract, in November, Evguéni Prigojine decrees that all of them will be automatically renewed. Andrei Medvedev does not want to hear about such an extension. He then he gets hit. That’s when he decided to set sail and stuck to Gulagu.net.
CNN also points out that Yevgeny Prigokhine does not deny at all that Andrei Medvedev belonged to his troops for a few months. On Telegram on Monday, he acknowledged her, adding, however, that he should have been “prosecuted for ill-treatment of prisoners.”
Abuse that Andrei Medvedev fiercely denies having committed, in an exchange also held with Vladimir Osechkin in December: “I did not commit any crime. I refused to participate in Evguény Prigojine’s maneuvers”.
exile to survive
Anyway, after two previous failures to cross into Finland, Andrei Medvedev managed to escape to Norway last Friday, crossing the border in its arctic part, in the middle of the night. Once on the safe side, he knocks on the first door, as he retraces from Vladimir Osechkin:
“I explained the situation to a local lady in my broken English and asked her for help. And on the way, I was stopped by the police and customs. They took me to a police station where they questioned me and charged me with illegal entry into the territory. I explained everything and told them why I had done it.”
Norwegian police confirmed both Andrei Medvedev’s presence and his asylum claim. The institution went on to say that an investigation was underway. For Vladimir Osechkin, again approached by CNN, things are simple: his exile was a matter of life and death. “His life was in danger. He was afraid of being executed like Yevgeny Nuzhin, with a mace.”
The activist was referring here to this alleged Wagner defector whose murder was filmed and published on the Internet last November. We saw the soldier, his head pinned against a stone and then struck by the mass of his executioners. All to the greatest mocking joy of Evguéni Prigojine who had publicly praised “a magnificent work of production”, “still hoping” “that no animal was injured during filming”.
Source: BFM TV
