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A mercenary from the Russian military company "Wagner", who fled to Norway, told human rights activists how this private army functions, the "Daily Telegraph" reported.

During his escape, Andrey Medvedev jumped over two barbed wire fences and crossed the frozen Pasvik River.

The mercenary managed to get to Norway after sneaking past observation posts along the border, being unharmed by the open fire and running from tracking dogs.

"I heard a dog barking behind me, the searchlights came on and shots were fired at me," says the former Wagner commander.

"I just ran to the woods."

When he reached Norwegian territory, he went to the lights of houses, knocked on the first door and asked for help.

"I'm so grateful to be here, I'm so grateful to all the people who helped me," he said.

An authoritative media announces a "serious offensive of the Russian army"

Medvedev joined the group "Wagner", which recruits a lot of people from Russian prisons, in July, when he was released from prison.

His contract was only for four months, but when it was up, he was told he had to stay.

But with the help of fighters from his unit, Medvedev managed to escape.

He was hiding in Russia and in December published a video in which he exposed the atrocities of "Wagner".

The mercenary knew that his luck wouldn't last forever, because Wagner had a special unit called the Med whose job it was to track down deserters and then mete out Wagner-style justice.

The scheme of action of "Med" is obviously borrowed from the famous for its brutality SMERSH ("Death to spies"/"Death to spies"), which operated during the Second World War.

In an interview with the human rights group Gulagu.net from the Oslo migrant detention center, Medvedev said that if he had been caught he would have been killed "or even worse".

The mercenary must have known what awaited him if he was captured, as he commanded a "Wagner" unit that fought around Bakhmut in the Donbas region.

One of the fighters under his command was Yevgeny Nuzhin, a former prisoner who had deserted.

In November, Nuzhin was handed back to Wagner in a prisoner exchange.

He is then killed by another mercenary from the group who smashes his head in with a hammer.

Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine: The city of Bakhmut is under siege.

Wagner: Not true!

The Daily Telegraph recalls that the Russian private military company gained notoriety this year after it recruited thousands of convicts from prisons and sent them to Ukraine to support the Russian invasion.

Among those wishing to join "Wagner" is Mikhail Popkov, called "The Maniac from Angarsk".

As a policeman and security guard in Siberia and the Russian Far East, he raped and killed around 83 women between 1998 and 2010.

He expressed his desire to join the ranks of the private military company yesterday on Russian television, the British newspaper said.