Book Review | Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos

Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos. By Candace Rondeaux. New York: PublicAffairs, 2025. 480 Pages. ISBN-13: ‎978-1541703063.

Published in 2025, Putin’s Sledgehammer, by Candace Rondeaux, is one of the most recent and most comprehensive works to address the phenomenon that was Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group and the impact it ultimately had on the Russian way of war. The author, who had a notable career as an investigative journalist and foreign correspondent, is eminently qualified in this arena, having firsthand experience since the mid-1990s with Russia’s use of narrative and deflection to obscure its political positioning along with the political maneuvering among its shifting cast of characters. Per the author, the book grew out of a joint project between Arizona State University and the New America Foundation on the future of proxy war in the 21^st Century. Rondeaux currently directs New America’s Future Frontlines program (with a global view to the digital transformation of our times) and its Planetary Politics Initiative (connecting academic research to real world action in ecology, ethics, and law) along with being a professor of practice at Arizona State University’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies and the Future Security Initiative.

The 480-page book consists of a ‘principal characters’ listing, a prologue, twenty-three chapters divided into four parts, an epilogue, author’s note and acknowledgements, end notes by chapter, and an index. There is also a centerpiece of photographs of Putin, Prigozhin, and other key individuals. The listing of principal characters is an exceedingly helpful reference point for those not well-versed regarding the players involved, given the similarities in many of the names and the intricacies of their overlapping associations. The prologue explains the reference to Wagner as sledgehammer, originating in a viral 2017 video uncovered by bloggers in which Wagner mercenaries use a sledgehammer—an iconic motif of Soviet Russia—to torture their victim while others laugh in the background. This foregrounds the role of that reputation for cruelty as a vital psychological (PsyOps) aspect of the new battlefield, both off- and online.

The first of the four sections, Origins, addresses the ‘before’ period for the primary players in Wagner’s cast of characters, lending insight into how these personal formative experiences shaped the group’s trajectory and ultimate outcome. It consists of six chapters:

• Chapter 1: Bandit City
• Chapter 2: The Old Customs House
• Chapter 3: New Island
• Chapter 4: Guns, Gas, and Oil
• Chapter 5: The Last Supper
• Chapter 6: The New Look

The section begins with an evocation of Prigozhin, Putin, and other key associates’ early years. A number spent part of their youth in Russia’s harsh prison system. Putin’s course was sport and the KGB. But a main theme is the concurrent geopolitical change—the fall of the Berlin Wall, collapse of the Soviet Union, and subsequent “perestroika”— turning Russian society upside down. The move from state ownership to a free market gave rise to something of a free-for-all ripe for criminal endeavors and the rise of a new cadre of oligarchs. Rondeaux paints a picture in which the darkening national mood in Russia over rampant corruption and mafia violence and incipient hostilities between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea background the convergence of Prigozhin and Putin’s worlds—and the power brokers in between. Prigozhin became an entrepreneurial capitalist and ultimately a successful restauranter serving Russia’s rich and powerful while Putin moved steadily up the political ranks. When Putin became head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Prime Minister, and—somewhat surprisingly in 2000—president with the resignation of Yeltsin, Prigozhin would play a key role in wooing foreign dignitaries as Putin’s ‘chef.’

Later chapters in this section introduce the role of mercenaries to the equation. As early as the campaign in Chechnya, Russian brutality was notable, often undertaken by kontraktniki or contract soldiers. The trifecta of ‘guns, gas, and oil’ increasingly lay at the heart of Russia’s economy and the author unpacks these connections in a more pointed and detailed way than most. Russian arms trade in the Middle East—eventually expanded to Africa and elsewhere—further initiated test runs of paramilitary forces to provide deniability in the face of international restrictions. Clients would repay Russia mineral rights to oil, gas, diamonds, and other valuable natural resources in a string of connections linking ultranationalists, former Spetsnaz, and mob bosses with those highly placed within the Russian state.

In the next to last chapter in the section, Rondeaux offers readers a final piece to the origin puzzle in Alexander Dugin’s political philosophy which pushed a new world order rejecting Western ideals and reviving the Russian empire. In practice, it would spawn a new cadre of Russian military officers and broached the more widespread fielding of nongovernmental military organizations—beginning with Redut but ultimately its competitor Wagner. These would offer deniability while filling the operational gaps of the Russian military. The author sets out how, as Russia set its sights on an “Innovation Army,” discontent with the downsizing and the opportunities offered to the free market by the privatization of its logistics provided oversized opportunities for entrepreneur Prigozhin who could capitalize on earlier connections, getting lucrative contracts across his many shell companies. As opposition leaders emerged to Putin’s presidency, it was Prigozhin who would make himself indispensable in countering them with online disinformation, creating the troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency.

The second section, Hidden in Plain Sight, turns primarily to the story of Russia’s private military companies (PMCs) and ultimately Wagner itself and consists of five chapters:

• Chapter 7: Gerasimov’s Ghosts
• Chapter 8: Slavonic Corps
• Chapter 9: Polite People
• Chapter 10: Down, Out, and Up in Donbas
• Chapter 11: The Cleaners

This section opens by recognizing the long unofficial history of mercenaries as an adjunct to national militaries in carrying out ‘special operations.’ Rondeaux details how by 2012, as the exigencies of increasing US dominance and inadequate preparedness of the Russian military sank in, Putin began to hedge the existing national rhetoric on the illegality of employing PMCs even as he maintained deniability that they constituted state action. That same year, a Nigerian raid on a Moran Security Group ship carrying a cache of Russian weaponry, would ultimately link its registration back years earlier to an intermediary of Prigozhin. The author points to Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov’s declaration of nonmilitary efforts to achieve strategic goals as “war by other means” as a sales pitch to the Russian people for a strategy that Putin was already covertly employing.

The following chapters cover Moran Security’s subsidiary, Slavonic Corps, in Syria and later concerns with security for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi overlapping with burgeoning troubles in Ukraine. The latter would famously see the appearance of uniformed unidentified ‘little green men’ fighting against Ukraine in Crimea. Noted in Chapter 10 is that a call sign linked to the downing of the Ukrainian IL-76 military transport jet indicated that Wagner were already afoot. The author shows intricately the where and why of how Wagner became the biggest player in the region. She offers the downing of the MH17 and its aftermath as solid indication that PMCs and information technology had changed the character of war and the way in which diplomacy would respond. Wagner would continue to evolve in the face of these new realities.

The third section, Expansion, concerns Wagner Group’s expanded global remit and consists of seven chapters:

• Chapter 12: Song of the Sledgehammer
• Chapter 13: Clash at Conoco
• Chapter 14: Project Astrea
• Chapter 15: Africa or Bust
• Chapter 16: Onward to Tripoli
• Chapter 17: Mix-Up in Minsk
• Chapter 18: Prelude to Spring

If the earlier sections were both in a sense still prelude, part three of the work shows Wagner at both its strongest and weakest.  Beginning with the 2017 battle to save Assad’s government—and the valuable oil and gas fields around Palmyra—from opposition forces and ISIS, Rondeaux shows how the price in lives and treasure was dear and the logistics to supply the group enormous. Multiple Russian PMCs—including Redut and Rusich—were there, but Wagner rose to the forefront due to Prigozhin being a master of both off- and online deception. Despite US sanctions and an unfortunate gruesome video clip from Syria that surfaced on WhatsApp, its popular currency grew at home and abroad. Group morale within, however, was suffering and corruption rampant. The group was taxed with a lack of men and arms. Prigozhin’s ego would further clash with the military hierarchy, culminating in the debacle at the Conoco plant in which the Wagner contingent was slaughtered. The author takes the reader along on Prigozhin’s whirlwind tour of African states, expanding Russia’s influence and gaining further mining concessions, most importantly in the Central African Republic (CAR). Chapters 15 and 16 stress their importance to Putin’s plan of weakening Western influence, seeking to stamp them with Russian influence as it stitched together logistical hubs for resources to drive his campaign in Ukraine. The flexibility in using PMCs was once again key. The section ends by placing both Russia and the US (itself having just experienced the storming of the Capitol) in a historical moment in which both appeared as Great Powers in decline, facing existential crises while they simultaneously dealt with the new way of war in the 21^st century.

Coming mid-section chronologically—but an important sidebar to Wagner as military mercenary group—is the chapter on Project Astrea. Rondeaux convincingly lays out piece-by-piece the role of Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency, on direction of the Kremlin, in interfering with the 2016 US presidential election by systematically undermining other candidates in order to put Donald Trump in the White House. An FBI investigation would find evidence of social media manipulation, hacking, and cyberattacks on voting machines. Charges were eventually brought against Prigozhin—also implicating Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort—but due to the sensitivity of the potential release of classified information and no witness protections allowed, the case was dropped by the prosecution. This chapter makes it clear that these online efforts were no less proxy warfare by Russia against the US than what was happening in small states across the globe.

The last section, Out of the Shadows, is a classic denouement but with a twist and consists of five chapters:

• Chapter 19: Orchestral Maneuvers
• Chapter 20: Gulag No, Gulag Yes
• Chapter 21: A Stab in the Back
• Chapter 22: Icarus Down
• Chapter 23: Succession

This section makes the point that, just as Russia began to openly invade Ukraine in 2022, Wagner was going public. Prigozhin doubled down on Wagner’s image of gangster cool, with huge growth in its online fan base, developing recognizable images to reinforce its narrative which were splashed on billboards across Russia and its slick new website. Chapter 20 plays on the point that Prigozhin controlled the narrative such that even when prisoner’s rights advocates set out a Gulagu.net website, he returned with his own Gulagu-da (prison-yes!) response. The rise before the fall was a classic one. Rondeaux explains that while the uncertainty of the relationship between Prigozhin and Putin lay at the heart of his strength, by challenging the military hierarchy—if not Putin himself—openly, he had overstepped a line. The last few chapters lay bare the interplay that would ultimately lead Prigozhin to march on Moscow, sealing his fate—Icarus had flown too close to the sun.

The Epilogue, subtitled Fallout, chronicles the aftermath of Prigozhin’s mutiny and subsequent death for the Russian hierarchy and the remnants of the Wagner Group. The author explains that the Kremlin was committed to not making the same mistakes again, reshuffling its military leadership and tightening its reigns on what remained a useful commodity. Redut would take over the recruitment of irregular forces but a Wagner redux—without its former leadership and rebranded as Africa Corps—would continue to prop up leaders in crisis across the continent using whatever means necessary while returning their natural resource treasure to Russia’s economic coffers. But Wagner’s legacy, through its symbolism, would live on.

This summary cannot do justice to the high level of detail of an expanded cast of characters and their complex interactions which Rondeaux offers in this work.  Exceedingly well researched, the book contains nearly 700 footnoted references drawn from sources in both English and Russian, ranging from interviews and government documents to books, academic articles, and news pieces to social media sites, correspondence, records, and leaked files. Her presentation of this unfolding saga setting the scene for the introduction of Wagner—both historically and psychologically—in the first section alone is almost a short book unto itself. The main problem—if it can be called that—is that due to the number of players introduced and the necessity of going backward and forward in time for each critical node, the threads can be hard to follow, particularly if some of the information is new, and is slow reading as each thread is tied into the overarching account. There is, however, a very useful index to assist in that journey. Part one is particularly enlightening for those with a keen interest in how a former convict like Prigozhin found his niche among the rich and powerful and the way in which mercenary companies come into play. If a reader is looking for the short-and-sweet guide to Wagner, this is not your book but, for the rest, this is a must-read case study on the future of proxy war in the 21^st century.

The post Book Review | Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.