They’d round up those who did not want to fight and shoot them
Russian mercenary reveals Wagner brutality
A RUNAWAY Russian mercenary has described the brutality dished out by the Wagner Group, with soldiers who refuse to fight executed in front of terrified new recruits.
Andrei Medvedev, 26, who is seeking asylum in Norway, claims after being shot those seen as traitors were buried in trenches dug by the trainees.
The horrifying claims were made by Medvedvev – who branded Wagner boss Yevgeny Prighozin “the devil” – in a CNN interview.
Speaking after he escaped fighting near Bakhmut, Ukraine, he lashed out at Prighozin and told how many mourning Russian families were not being paid £57,000 in compensation promised for fallen soldiers.
MONEY
In order to save on payouts troops were just registered as “missing”, as “nobody wants to pay that kind of money,” claimed Medvedev.
Speaking to CNN’S Anderson Cooper he revealed: “They would round up those who did not want to fight and shoot them in front 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 front line just two weeks after signing up with the notorious Wagner killers-forhire agency.
Dubbed “Putin’s private army” it is believed more than 50,000 frontline Russian troops in Ukraine are actually on the Wagner payroll.
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According to the American news channel, Medvedev claims he reported directly to Wagner founders Dmitry Utkin, 52, and shady oligarch Prigozhin, 61.
In his interview, Medvedev highlighted the fact that Prighozin is not doing any actual fighting, whilst ordering executions for those who refused.
“If he was a Russian hero he would have taken a gun and run with the soldiers,” he told CNN.
And he says the many convicts who signed up with Wagner – some of them murderers – were promised their families would receive five million rubles.
He said he wants to now share his story in order to help bring Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin to justice.
He said: “Sooner or later the propaganda in Russia will stop working, the people will rise up and all our leaders will be up for grabs, a new leader will emerge.”
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.
Yesterday the Mirror revealed an intelligence report said Wagner were doing deals with Chinese spooks for deadly drones.
Equipped with bombs they could cause maximum destruction or create a mass aerial spy ring.