Andrei Medvedev, a former commander of Wagner’s mercenaries who fled to Norway, where he sought asylum, told CNN that the brutality and incompetence he saw in the group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin led him to defect.

Medvedev, who secretly crossed the border into Norway in mid-January, claims that Wagner Group mercenaries were often sent into battle without much guidance and that the paramilitary group treated reluctant recruits mercilessly.

“Those who did not want to fight were rounded up and shot in front of the recruits,” Medvedev claims.

“They brought two prisoners who refused to go to fight and shot them in front of everyone, and then buried them right in the trenches dug by the recruits.”

Medvedev, 26, claims to have served in the Russian army, then joined Wagner’s group, with whom he fought in Ukraine immediately after signing the contract, under the direct command of the founders of Putin’s so-called “private army”, Dmitry Utkin and Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Prigozhin is a “devil”, claims Medvedev, of whom he says that “if he were a Russian hero, he would have taken a gun and fought alongside the soldiers”.

Wagner’s group had no strategy

Medvedev accuses Wagner’s group of lacking strategy and sending troops into the battlefield with improvised plans.

“There were no real tactics at all. We received only orders regarding the enemy’s position… There were no clear orders on how to behave. We only planned what to do next, step by step,” said Medvedev.

The former commander told CNN that by the sixth day of his deployment to Ukraine, he knew he didn’t want to return for another mission after witnessing the troops being turned into cannon fodder.

Former commander Wagner claims that he started with 10 men under his command, which number grew when criminals released from prisons began to join the group.

“After all, I had a lot of people under my command,” he said. – I couldn’t count how many. They were in constant circulation. Corpses, more prisoners, more corpses, more prisoners.”

The families of prisoners who joined Wagner’s group were promised compensation of five million rubles, equivalent to $71,000, if they died in the war, but in reality “no one wanted to pay that much” and many prisoners were declared “missing”. Medvedev claims

He highly appreciates the courage of Ukrainian soldiers

Medvedev praised both camps, calling both Ukrainian and Russian troops brave.

Asked if he feared he would suffer the fate of another defector, Yevgeny Nuzhin, who was killed on camera with a sledgehammer, Medvedev said Nuzhin’s death prompted him to flee.

“I would just say that it made me braver, more determined to go,” Medvedev said.

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