Andrey Medvedev, a former commander from the Wagner Group, who fled to Norway in January in hopes of seeking asylum, has been arrested on suspicion of trying to cross the border back into Russia, according to his lawyer.
The arrest of Medvedev comes after he was sentenced to jail in April for disorderly conduct and carrying an air gun in a public place. These charges were related to his alleged involvement in a bar brawl that took place in Oslo, the capital of Norway, in February.
However, Medvedev’s lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, stated that his client’s recent arrest was a misunderstanding.
“He was there to see if he could find the place where he crossed into Norway in January. He was stopped while he was in a taxi. He was never near the border… It was never his intention to cross the border into Russia,” Risnes explained.
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Former Wagner commander Andrey Medvedev is pictured in court with his lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, in Oslo, Norway, in April. (Gorm Kallestad/NTB/Reuters)
According to Reuters, when Medvedev initially entered Norway through the arctic border with Russia, he claimed that he was seeking asylum because he feared for his life after witnessing the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners in Ukraine.
However, several months later, Medvedev posted a video on YouTube expressing his desire to return to Russia despite the risks involved.
During the trial earlier this year, the court acquitted Medvedev of assaulting police officers during his arrest in the bar brawl. Risnes stated that although Medvedev admitted to resisting arrest and spitting while being handcuffed, he denied kicking the officers.
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A portrait of Wagner Group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in August in a plane crash two months after launching his brief rebellion, lies on flowers on the grave at the Porokhovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
“It is very good that he was acquitted for what was the most serious,” Risnes later told the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet after the verdict.
Medvedev stated that he had joined the Wagner Group from July to November 2022, but left when his contract was extended without his consent. He expressed willingness to testify about any potential war crimes he had witnessed, although he denied participating in any himself.
According to Reuters, the Norwegian police later issued a statement confirming that a man in his 20s had been taken into custody for attempting to cross the border into Russia illegally, without revealing his identity.
A view shows a flag of the Wagner private mercenary group at the site of the plane crash that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin in the Tver region of Russia on September 1, 2023. (Reuters)
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, died in a plane crash in Russia last month.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
