Medvedev says he was forced to flee Russia across the Arctic border, climbing over barbed wire fences and dodging a border patrol with dogs.
In the distance, he heard the guards shooting as he ran through a forest and over the frozen river that separates the two countries.
This 26-year-old Russian man joined the militias of the Wagner mercenary group in July 2022. "I really thought the Russian Federation had good intentions," he says.
In the video that accompanies this news item, he narrates the scenarios that he lived through for several months, and what led him to leave on January 13 and seek asylum in Norway.
She fears for his life after witnessing what he says were the murders and mistreatment of Russian prisoners brought to the Ukraine to fight on behalf of the Wagner group.
“I witnessed the situation when Wagner's security services brought in two who refused to fight, said they were traitors and cowards, and shot them dead in public,” he explains.
On witness status, the Norwegian national criminal police service, called Kripos, has begun questioning Andrei about his experiences in Ukraine.
His life has been chaotic, dangerous and very stressful for a long time.
Especially during the fall, when he was in the Ukraine with the Wagner group.
Medvedev now lives in a secret place in the Oslo area, since he was released on Wednesday, January 25, after a “disagreement” with the police over the measures taken to guarantee his safety.
The Wagner group, led by President Vladimir Putin's affinity Prigozhin, has been embroiled in a blood battle in the eastern Donetsk region, and is probably the most experienced and dangerous army in the world.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed, millions uprooted and cities reduced to rubble, since Russian forces invaded Ukraine 11 months ago.
