31 January 2023 , 11:28
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A runaway Russian mercenary has described the frontline brutality served up by the Wagner Group with soldiers refusing to fight executed in front of terrified recruits.
Andrei Medvedev, 26, who is seeking asylum in Norway, claims after being shot the accused fighters were buried in holes excavated by the newly signed up troops.
The terrifying claims were made by Medevev - who branded Wagner boss Yevgeny Prighozin “the devil” after he escaped fighting near Bakhmut, Ukraine.
Speaking to CNN he even lashed out at ex-jailbird Prighozin and said many mourning Russian families were not being paid promised compensation for lost soldiers.
In order to save the £57,000 compensation troops were just registered as “missing” as “nobody wants to pay that kind of money,” according to Medvedev.
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Former mercenary Andrei Medvedev, 26, is now seeking asylum in Norway (Gulagu.net /AFP via Getty Images)
Medvedev has been released after being arrested by Norwegian cops on January 23 (Gulagu.net /AFP via Getty Images)Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper he said: “They would round up those who did not want to fight and shoot them in front of newcomers.
“They brought two prisoners who refused to go fight and they shot them in front of everyone and buried them right in the trenches that were dug by the trainees.”
Medvedev crossed into Ukraine and was sent to the frontline just two weeks after signing up with the notorious Wagner killers-for-hire agency.
Ukrainian army soldiers on the frontline (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)Dubbed “Putin’s private army” it is believed well-over 50,000 frontline Russian troops in Ukraine are actually on the Wagner payroll.
According to CNN Medvedev claims he reported directly to Wagner founders Dmitry Utkin and shady oligarch Prigozhin who has served nine years behind bars years ago.
Referring to the ex-gangster as “the devil” Medvedev highlights the fact that Prighozin is not doing any actual fighting, whilst ordering executions for those who refused.
He told CNN: “If he was a Russian hero he would have taken a gun and run with the soldiers.”
Rescue workers scour the debris of a destroyed residential building (AFP via Getty Images)And he says the many prisoners who signed up with Wagner, some of them murderers, were promised their families would receive five million rubles - about £57,000.
But in reality “nobody wanted to pay that kind of money,” so they were coldly dubbed “missing.”
He added that he wants to now share his story in order to help bring Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin to justice, explaining: “Sooner or later the propaganda in Russia will stop working, the people will rise up and all our leaders …will be up for grabs and a new leader will emerge.”
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The Wagner Group has been suspected for some years of committing atrocities in Syria and Africa but is also gaining power in the Russian military system.