Medvedev’s Norwegian lawyer additionally advised the AP that his shopper is searching for asylum in the nation. The lawyer didn’t reply to a Washington Post request for remark Monday night time.
Last week, police mentioned a person, whom they recognized solely as a overseas nationwide, was arrested after illegally crossing into Norway from Russia early Friday. The two nations share a 123-mile-long border.
Reuters, citing the Russian human rights group Gulagu Net, reported that Medvedev fled the Wagner Group after witnessing its seize and execution of members who abandoned the group.
The shadowy Wagner Group was based by enterprise government Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who, till Russia launched the Ukraine struggle, had denied any connection to the group. Prigozhin is an in depth affiliate of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s. Wagner has been accused of finishing up atrocities in nations together with Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Mali.
According to U.S. assessments, Wagner has deployed 50,000 fighters in Ukraine — 40,000 of them convicts recruited straight from Russian prisons with the supply of a pardon in alternate for six months’ service. It is unclear how Medvedev joined the group.
Earlier this month, a member of Russia’s Human Rights Council mentioned Putin had secretly pardoned dozens of convicts earlier than they had been deployed to Ukraine.
This just isn’t the primary report of a Wagner member fleeing the group. Last 12 months, Yevgeny Nuzhin, a 55-year-old homicide convict who was launched from jail to battle in Ukraine, gave interviews after defecting to Ukrainian forces.
In November, nevertheless, an unverified video was shared on a Wagner-linked Telegram account showing to indicate his brutal killing with a sledgehammer. It was not clear who carried out the purported execution or when, however a Ukrainian presidential adviser was quoted as saying that Nuzhin had agreed to return to Russia voluntarily. According to Medvedev’s statements to Gulagu Net, quoted by Reuters, Nuzhin had been a member of his unit.
Norway, a NATO member, says it has offered hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian and army help to Kyiv because the Russian invasion was launched virtually a 12 months in the past.
Last 12 months, Norwegian authorities arrested at least seven Russians for flying drones or taking footage close to delicate areas. Among these arrested was a son of an in depth affiliate of Putin’s.
