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- A former commander for the notorious Wagner Group fled Russia and is now in search of asylum in Norway.
- Andrey Medvedev still left Russia fearful for his life after leaving the team, his attorney instructed Insider.
- Medvedev intends to cooperate with any war-criminal offense investigations into the group’s actions in Ukraine.
A commander in the infamous Wagner Group, which has been accused of war crimes in Ukraine, is in search of asylum in Norway, and his lawyer claimed he’s keen to blow the whistle on the actions of the notorious private mercenary army.
The Affiliated Press was the initial to report that Andrey Medvedev fled Russia last week and is now looking for shelter in Norway, citing affirmation from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration.
Medvedev’s Norwegian law firm, Brynjulf Risnes, confirmed in a contact with Insider on Monday that Medvedev was in the region and trying to find asylum.
Risnes instructed Insider that Medvedev enlisted with the Wagner Group last summer season. He desired to leave the group at the conclude of his 4-month contract, which was thanks to expire in November, but feared it would be indefinitely prolonged without his consent, his law firm reported.
“He observed no other selection but to run absent,” Risnes added.
Past week, Medvedev illegally crossed the border into Norway, acquiring been in hiding in Russia for extra than a thirty day period.
Medvedev is now seeking asylum since he “fears retribution and, really, for his daily life,” his lawyer explained.
According to his laywer, Medvedev has currently spoken to Norwegian immigration authorities and intends to cooperate in any investigations pertaining to feasible war crimes committed by the Wagner Team in Ukraine.
He included that Medvedev intends to share “every little thing he appreciates about the way the Wagner Group is effective on the within,” such as potentially with the Global Criminal Courtroom in The Hague.
The Wagner Team, which is progressively recruiting from Russian prisons, is alleged by a wide range of corporations to have fully commited actions in Ukraine that would constitute war crimes.
Ukrainian prosecutors say that Wagner Group mercenaries killed and tortured civilians in the vicinity of Kyiv in April 2022, even though the German foreign-intelligence services reported it has proof that the group’s mercenaries massacred civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, in March 2022.
Its mercenaries have earlier been accused of raping gals in a maternity ward in the Central African Republic and of deliberately targeting civilians in Mali.
The group’s brutal practices are not restricted to those people on the reverse side of the conflict.
In December, Medvedev told The Insider, a Latvia-centered media outlet that is not affiliated with this publication, that he understood of 10 circumstances in which the Wagner Group experienced executed mercenaries who refused to consider component in beat.
He included that he was current at a number of killings and claimed to have video evidence of two prisoners becoming executed by the team for refusing to struggle in Ukraine.
The Wagner Team has beforehand been deployed in Libya, Syria, and in other locations across the environment.
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