A former Wagner mercenary says the brutality he witnessed in Ukraine finally pushed him to defect, in an unique CNN interview on Monday.
Wagner fighters had been typically despatched into battle with little route, and the corporate’s therapy of reluctant recruits was ruthless, Andrei Medvedev instructed CNN’s Anderson Cooper from Norway’s capital Oslo, the place he’s in search of asylum after crossing that nation’s arctic border from Russia.
“They’d spherical up those that didn’t need to struggle and shoot them in entrance of newcomers,” he alleges. “They introduced two prisoners who refused to go struggle they usually shot them in entrance of everybody and buried them proper within the trenches that had been dug by the trainees.”
The 26-year-old, who says he beforehand served within the Russian army, joined Wagner as a volunteer. He crossed into Ukraine lower than 10 days after signing his contract in July 2022, serving close to Bakhmut, the frontline metropolis within the Donetsk area. The mercenary group has emerged as a key participant in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Medvedev mentioned he reported on to the group’s founders, Dmitry Utkin and Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, whom he describes as “the satan.”
“If (Prigozhin) was a Russian hero, he would have taken a gun and run with the troopers,” Medvedev mentioned.
In a press release emailed to CNN on Tuesday, Prigozhin declined to touch upon “army points” and described Wagner as an “exemplary army group that complies with all the required legal guidelines and guidelines of contemporary wars.” The Wagner boss has beforehand confirmed that Medvedev had served in his firm, and mentioned that he “ought to have been prosecuted for trying to mistreat prisoners.”
Medvedev instructed CNN that he didn’t need to touch upon what he’d finished himself whereas combating in Ukraine.
‘No actual techniques’
Medvedev spoke to CNN from Oslo after crossing its border in a daring defection that, he says noticed him evade arrest “a minimum of ten occasions” and dodge bullets from Russian forces. He crossed into Norway over an icy lake utilizing white camouflage to mix in, he mentioned.
He instructed CNN that he knew by the sixth day of his deployment in Ukraine that he didn’t need to return for an additional tour after witnessing troops being changed into cannon fodder.
He began off with 10 males beneath his command, a quantity that grew as soon as prisoners had been allowed to affix, he mentioned. “There have been extra lifeless our bodies, and extra, and extra, individuals coming in. In the long run I had lots of people beneath my command,” he mentioned. “I couldn’t depend what number of. They had been in fixed circulation. Lifeless our bodies, extra prisoners, extra lifeless our bodies, extra prisoners.”
Wagner lacked a tactical technique, with troops arising with plans on the fly, Medvedev mentioned.
“There have been no actual techniques in any respect. We simply obtained orders in regards to the place of the adversary…There have been no particular orders about how we should always behave. We simply deliberate how we might go about it, step-by-step. Who would open fireplace, what sort of shifts we might have…The way it the way it how it could prove that was our drawback,” he mentioned.
Advocacy teams say prisoners who enlisted had been instructed their households would obtain a pay-out of 5 million rubles ($71,000) in the event that they died within the conflict.
However in actuality “no person wished to pay that form of cash,” Medvedev mentioned. He alleged that many Russians who died combating in Ukraine had been “simply declared lacking.”
Prigozhin dismissed the accusation in his response to CNN, saying “up to now, not a single case of non-payment of insurance coverage pay-outs has been recorded within the Wagner Group.”
‘I noticed braveness on each side’
Medvedev was emotional at occasions within the interview, telling CNN that he noticed braveness on each side of the conflict.
“You recognize, I noticed braveness on each side, on the Ukrainian facet as effectively, and our boys too… I simply need them to know that,” he mentioned.
He added that he desires to now share his story in an effort to assist carry Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin to justice.
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