Ex-Wagner commander arrested in Norway for attempting return to Russia

A former Wagner mercenary group commander was detained by Norwegian police on suspicion of attempting to enter Russia illegally after applying for asylum there earlier this year, according to the man’s attorney on Saturday. Andrei Medvedev recalled fleeing as Russian guards opened fire on him in his account of his January flight from Russia over the country’s Arctic border with Norway. He has talked about his time fighting for the Wagner group in Ukraine. Police stated in a statement late on Friday that a man in his 20s had been arrested for trying to enter Russia illegally, but they did not give his name. The identify of the individual who had been detained was withheld by a Finnmark local police officer. Traversing the border to Russia is only allowed at designated points. But Medvedev’s arrest was due to a misunderstanding, his Norwegian lawyer Brynjulf Risnes told the media. “He was up there to see if he could find the place where he crossed (into Norway in January). He was stopped when he was in a taxi. He was never near the border … It was never his intention to cross the border (into Russia),” Risnes said. When he first arrived in Norway, Medvedev claimed he was looking for refuge because he feared for his life after seeing Russian captives who had been carried to the front lines of the Ukrainian conflict killed and treated badly. His escape in January garnered international attention as a then-rare instance of a defection to a Western nation while claiming to have participated in the Ukraine War as a mercenary for Russia. Although he acknowledged that doing so may endanger his life, he stated in a YouTube video that he wanted to go back to Russia and described himself as “some kind of a boy in a big game” that he no longer wanted to be a part of. Risnes reported Medvedev had the right to return to Russia if he wanted to, but that “a lot of changes need to happen” in order to make a safe return. In Norway, Medvedev was found guilty in April of participating in a pub brawl and having an air gun on him, but not of attacking police officers. He then stated that he was hoping for asylum and was looking to the future. Just two months after sending his mercenaries forward on Moscow in a direct threat to the Russian system, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was assassinated when a private jet he used crashed on August 23. (With agency inputs)