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WARNING: This story contains graphic details from the war in Ukraine
As Andrei Medvedev walks the streets of Oslo, Norway, he pulls a black hoodie over his dirty blonde hair.
It is likely to try to block the frosty February air, as opposed to hiding part of his face which splashed across the news media in this Scandinavian country since he ran through the remote arctic border shared with Russia last month.
A 26-year-old who went to war for Wagner’s Russian mercenary group in Ukraine says he fears nothing – except the prospect of having to return home and face cruel revenge of one-time employers, and the implications of publicly condemning the invasion of Ukraine.
He told CBC News that if that happened, “they would kill me.”
“I’m writing a will and I’m going to die.”
Medvedev said he crossed the Norwegian border, which is located 1500 km northwest of Moscow, avoiding border guards, dogs and even bullets in the dark morning of January 13.
He is believed to be the first Wagner fighter to have defected and spoken publicly.
Medvedev is seeking asylum in Oslo and is being considered as a witness by the Norwegian criminal police service who have questioned him several times about his role with the infamous Wagner Group.
Shortly after arriving at the Bakhmut battlefield in eastern Ukraine last summer, he said he realized they “don’t help the people of Donbas” and took several months to get out of Ukraine, and even longer to escape Russia.
In an interview with CBC News, he called the war a mistake and said that the occupied territories, including Crimea, should be returned to Ukraine.
“We shouldn’t have been there and all that,” he said.
“This war shouldn’t have happened.”
While he urged people not to judge him or dismiss his confession, the Norwegian Ukrainian community has filed a complaint with the police about his presence in the country, arguing that he should face a criminal trial in Kyiv.
Andrei Medvedev spoke to CBC News about his experience fighting in Ukraine with a group of Russian mercenaries.
Sign up for war
Medvedev signed a four-month contract to fight for Wagner in July shortly after his release from jail. He told Reuters that he had been jailed several times, including one for robbery.
The Wagner group has been actively recruiting in Russian prisons, promising the freedom of prisoners if they survive the war in Ukraine, and at the same time swearing death to anyone who flees the front line.
Western intelligence officials believe that 40,000 prisoners have joined Wagner’s forces in Ukraine, and a video circulating online shows Wagner’s commander Yvegeny Prigozhin personally urging inmates to join the fight.
Prigozhin, a former caterer who became a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin, is now in charge of the private secretive forces that Russia has deployed to Syria and several African countries and is now leaning heavily when struggling with mounting losses in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin has been lurking in Vladimir Putin’s shadow for years, and now he’s fighting Russia’s war in Ukraine with a ruthless 50,000-man mercenary called the Wagner Group. CBC’s Terence McKenna breaks down what he knows about Prigozhin to uncover a dangerous ex-criminal who plays a high-stakes game of control.
Medvedev said his last conversation with Prigozhin did not go well, and told CBC News that he considered the commander a “smug fool,” consumed by power.
Prigozhin had boasted about Wagner killing anyone he considered a traitor.
In November, a disturbing video circulated online of Wagner’s former fighter, Yevgenny Nuzhin, being beaten to death with a sledgehammer.
Prigozhin commented that the video should be called “a dog accepts the death of a dog.”
Medvedev said he decided to enlist and fight for Wagner because he thought he would be drafted, and knew the Russian army sometimes had problems paying its soldiers.
Under the contract, he earns $4,700 a month in Ukraine.
Witness the crimes of war
Medvedev grew up in the Tomsk region of Siberia, and says he spent his childhood in an orphanage, and served in the military until the age of 18.
He said he was sent to Donbas in 2014 as the Russian military and local separatists fought for control of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
CBC News has not been able to directly verify his claim.
While he has spoken to other news outlets about the fighter commander in Bakhmut, he declined to answer questions from CBC News about what he was doing with Wagner, saying he did not want to spoil discussions with police and the asylum process.
They before speaking about witnessing war crimes including the execution of two men who did not want to fight, but he would not give specific details to CBC News, saying that speaking freely before was a “big mistake”.
He said he struggled with the horrific images of taking a friend’s body part.
“I always have this memory in my mind, it keeps popping up,” he said.
“That’s the hardest part.”
Escape in the snow
Medvedv told CBC News that he left Ukraine on November 8 despite Wagner’s officials trying to extend his contract.
He went to St.
Medvedev said he tried to cross the Finnish border twice but failed, so in mid-January he opted to try Norway.
He explained that he was dropped off near the border in his white military uniform, so that he could join the fields covered in snow and frozen water.
He said he jumped over two barbed wire fences, before hearing dogs barking at him and finally the sound of bullets coming from the Russian side.
He said he ran across a frozen river and into a forest in Norway.
Medvedev said he then knocked on the house and woke up the older woman. He explained in English that he was Russian and that he was moving to the border.
Authorities picked him up moments later.
He describes Norway as friendly and respectful; he hopes his asylum claim will be granted
“People should imagine at least for a moment and put themselves in my shoes,” he said. “Imagine if he had been brought up in those conditions.”
Ukrainians protested their presence in Norway
But his pleas and apologies mean nothing to the Ukrainian community in Norway, which has rallied nightly in front of the country’s parliament building since the start of the war.
On Thursday evening, just over a dozen people gathered with flags and sang the Ukrainian national anthem.
Natalya, who gave CBC News only her first name, held up a sign with Medvedev’s picture and called it a terrorist.
“He must take responsibility for what he has done,” he said.
“You can imagine that they have killed. I don’t know how many but they have killed Ukrainians.”
Maxim Nechyporuk, who is from Lviv, Ukraine, said that the Ukrainian population in Norway is growing because thousands of refugees have arrived in the past year.
He said many were uncomfortable with Medvedev’s presence.
They and others have sent complaints to the police saying they don’t feel safe with Medvedev in their city.
“There’s no point,” he told CBC News.
“Let him talk to the Ukrainian judge … ask for a verdict and then we can hear regrets.”
As for Medvedev, he is sometimes accompanied by security when transiting through the city. He is no longer in custody and lives at an unknown location.
He said in contact with some of Wagner’s former comrades.
“A lot of regrets are there,” he said.
“[They] have the same opinion as me.”
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