Defector from Kremlin's most sinister militia The Wagner Group tells of ... trends now

The former commander of a Russian mercenary unit has seen one of his men beaten to death with a sledgehammer on video and two more colleagues shot in public executions. 

So he knows the terrible fate that awaits him after betrayal and defection.

Yet Andrey Medvedev is determined to blow the whistle on the group's atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine.

'I just want to tell the truth to the world and get justice so that the people who were in charge will be punished for what they did,' said the 26-year-old from Siberia.

The Wagner Group of mercenaries, co-founded by one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies and allegedly named after Adolf Hitler's favourite composer, is accused of some of Russia's most sickening atrocities in Ukraine – and Medvedev is the group's first former member to publicly expose their terrorism.

In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, he told how Wagner hit squads had killed 'dozens' of their own troops for disobeying orders and of seeing horrifying carnage as poorly equipped recruits were thrown into the 'meat grinder' frontline.

Just four of his 30-strong unit survived their first battle – and he says Russian recruits were simply being used as cannon fodder, slaughtered while senior officers hid safely in basements.

Medvedev, who has fled to Norway with the help of Russian human rights activists, claimed he narrowly avoided execution himself after being thrown in a hole in the ground when refusing to fight.

He was helped out of the covered pit by military friends, then went on the run in Russia for weeks before escaping over barbed-wire on the border last month as armed guards with dogs hunted him down.

Looking back, he said he realised within days of arriving on the frontline that he had made a huge mistake by falling for Kremlin lies about his nation's supposedly patriotic mission 'to liberate Ukraine from fascists'.

He said some Ukrainians he met spoke angrily to Russian soldiers about the attacks and occupation. 

'Imagine someone comes and destroys your home and ruins your life.'

Medvedev alleged that he decided to leave at the first available opportunity. 

But then he discovered the existence of the sinister security squad used to carry out public executions of soldiers who disobeyed orders and of the murder of prisoners of war.

He said he witnessed two punishment killings and learned of 'dozens' more after joining the paramilitary group last June.

'You could be executed simply for disobeying an order – for refusing to fight,' he said.

The hit squad forced new recruits – among which have been 40,000 prisoners – to watch the killings.

'A public execution installs fear,' said Medvedev. 'Many wives, parents, sisters and brothers might not know their sons did not die on the battlefield but were executed by their own side.'

His revelations, endorsed by human-rights activists, carry horrifying echoes of the commissar squads used by Stalin to kill Red Army deserters in the Second World War. 'Such things shocked me – it's not 1941,' said Medvedev.

The Wagner execution team was also used to murder Ukrainian prisoners of war – including four soldiers who surrendered to his unit near the fiercely contested town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region.

After failing to obtain useful information from the captives, his platoon commander summoned the feared internal security squad. 'You knew that the best case scenario was serious injury – and in the worst case, death.'

His testimony, although controversial given his role, is potentially important in helping build the case for war crimes against Putin and Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, a thuggish former jailbird who used Kremlin links to become a billionaire. 

Vladimir Osechkin, a prominent dissident who helped Medvedev escape, said there are similar statements from other Wagner recruits – including details of about 100 executions – but all the others were too scared to show their faces publicly.

'If they give their testimony, the security services of the Wagner group will kill them,' said the human-rights activist. 'This is very high risk for Andrey.'

Among the men Medvedev commanded was a former inmate in his 50s who was filmed being beaten to death with a sledgehammer after fleeing to Ukraine and then returning to Russia. 

'A dog receives a dog's death,' commented Prigozhin.Yet Medvedev insisted he is not scared of Wagner retribution. 'They are just criminals – I'm definitely not afraid of them.'

He accepts many people might consider him as 'a scoundrel, a criminal, a murderer' after serving with the group, but claimed he is determined to see Putin, Prigozhin and their accomplices face justice. 

'It's just insane,' he said. 'This war should not have happened.'

We talked over two days in Oslo. At one point he was phoned by the widow of his best friend, whose corpse he had retrieved from the battlefield. 

She told of being visited by Russian security officials searching for him. It was their first conversation, leaving him highly emotional. 'He was the best friend I had,' he said, showing me the man's picture with his wife on his phone. 

'We sat in the same trench. I carried his body out with my own hands.'

Medvedev typifies the type of men being seduced to serve Putin's twisted cause. His first military service came with conscription in 2014 after six years in a Siberian orphanage following the death of his mother. 

He

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