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Putin's Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia's Collapse into Mercenary Chaos
The astonishing inside story of the Wagner Group, the world’s deadliest militia.
In June 2023, the Wagner Group assembled an armed convoy that included tanks and rocket launchers and set out on what seemed like a journey to take control of Moscow. The last person to attempt such a venture was Adolf Hitler.
Wagner’s power began from patronage, then grew from international theft and extortion, until it was so great it exposed the weakness of Russia’s conventional military and became a threat to the Russian state, one that was not demonstrably eliminated until a private jet containing Wagner’s core commanders was blown up in midair.
That Yevgeny Prigozhin, a local criminal thug, was able to build a private army that was on the threshold of overwhelming the world’s second largest country seems incredible. In fact, it was inevitable following the hollowing out of the Russian military, the creeping use of contract groups for murky foreign missions, power struggles inside the Kremlin, and the ability of the new militias to corner and exploit the black economy.
Told with unique inside sourcing and expertise, Putin’s Sledgehammer is a gripping and terrifying account of a superpower that contracted its soul to a pitiless militia.
In June 2023, the Wagner Group assembled an armed convoy that included tanks and rocket launchers and set out on what seemed like a journey to take control of Moscow. The last person to attempt such a venture was Adolf Hitler.
Wagner’s power began from patronage, then grew from international theft and extortion, until it was so great it exposed the weakness of Russia’s conventional military and became a threat to the Russian state, one that was not demonstrably eliminated until a private jet containing Wagner’s core commanders was blown up in midair.
That Yevgeny Prigozhin, a local criminal thug, was able to build a private army that was on the threshold of overwhelming the world’s second largest country seems incredible. In fact, it was inevitable following the hollowing out of the Russian military, the creeping use of contract groups for murky foreign missions, power struggles inside the Kremlin, and the ability of the new militias to corner and exploit the black economy.
Told with unique inside sourcing and expertise, Putin’s Sledgehammer is a gripping and terrifying account of a superpower that contracted its soul to a pitiless militia.
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First published May 13, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
May 21, 2025
"Reviled by many elites in the West, he was larger than life and beloved by the Russian man in the street. Many who followed his lead into battle had criminal backgrounds. They saw in Prigozhin and the Wagner Group a chance at redemption, a path to become heroes and make Russia great again..."
Putin's Sledgehammer was an in-depth look into contemporary Russian power politics. Unfortunately, I became frustrated with the book's long length and dry writing. More below.
Author Candace Rondeaux is a globally recognized expert on international affairs, US national security, irregular warfare, and the strategic use of organized violence.
Candace Rondeaux:
The author writes in a matter-of-fact, no-frills fashion. She gets the book off to a bit of a slow start, by spending ~30min opening the book with a "cast of characters." This proved to be a harbinger of the rest of the writing to follow...
The book is very long, in general. The audio version I have clocks in at a hefty >17 hours. If you are going to write a book that long, then you had better make sure that it is decently readable.
In my experience, I am usually able to retain more of the info presented in shorter books compared to their longer counterparts. Often, longer books drone on endlessly and lose the reader in a torrent of minutia. Sadly, this one was also flirting heavily with that. While there are doubtless many readers who like super-long books big on covering every little detail, I am not among them.
The narrative of the book follows the life of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Private Military Contractor (PMC) organization Wagner Group. The writing covers his early life, and proceeds in a chronological fashion.
The author lays out the aim of the book in this quote:
I remember reading briefly about Prigozhin in 2022. His biography summarized an almost unbelievable meteoric rise to power. From spending time in prison, to rapidly becoming one of Russia's most powerful figures. Rondeaux expands:
********************
While there was a lot of ground covered here, the writing was a bit too flat and dry for my tastes. On the whole, I didn't really enjoy this one. I found myself getting frustrated with its tedium and slow pace many times.
2 stars.
Putin's Sledgehammer was an in-depth look into contemporary Russian power politics. Unfortunately, I became frustrated with the book's long length and dry writing. More below.
Author Candace Rondeaux is a globally recognized expert on international affairs, US national security, irregular warfare, and the strategic use of organized violence.
Candace Rondeaux:
The author writes in a matter-of-fact, no-frills fashion. She gets the book off to a bit of a slow start, by spending ~30min opening the book with a "cast of characters." This proved to be a harbinger of the rest of the writing to follow...
The book is very long, in general. The audio version I have clocks in at a hefty >17 hours. If you are going to write a book that long, then you had better make sure that it is decently readable.
In my experience, I am usually able to retain more of the info presented in shorter books compared to their longer counterparts. Often, longer books drone on endlessly and lose the reader in a torrent of minutia. Sadly, this one was also flirting heavily with that. While there are doubtless many readers who like super-long books big on covering every little detail, I am not among them.
The narrative of the book follows the life of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Private Military Contractor (PMC) organization Wagner Group. The writing covers his early life, and proceeds in a chronological fashion.
The author lays out the aim of the book in this quote:
"This book is an effort to answer those questions and more. It charts the rise of Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, tracing their origins from Russia’s reentry into the global economy after the Soviet Union’s collapse to the group’s implosion in 2023. Along the way, the narrative touches on the lives of the intrepid journalists, activists, information brokers, dissidents, and detectives who sought to expose the hidden tentacles of Russia’s unconventional warfare tactics and in so doing exposed the Wagner Group enterprise.
The chronicle that follows is an attempt to contextualize and explain how the merger of interests among Kremlin-connected power brokers, the castoffs of Russia’s war machine, and the foot soldiers of the country’s shadow economy forged a private army into a global juggernaut that for a moment in the summer of 2023 brought Putin’s tyrannical regime to a standstill. Putin’s reinvention of Russian power and his push for a new balance where multiple nations, including Russia, could pursue their interests unchecked by the constraints of international law was more than just a strategic pivot; it was a theatrical production with Prigozhin as its unsmiling stage manager. Or, at least, that is how Prigozhin seemed to imagine himself."
I remember reading briefly about Prigozhin in 2022. His biography summarized an almost unbelievable meteoric rise to power. From spending time in prison, to rapidly becoming one of Russia's most powerful figures. Rondeaux expands:
"...Instead, destiny pointed him in a different direction, first to a prison cell as a petty criminal, then hustling in the emerging capitalist markets of Russia, then into the ranks of Russia’s ultrarich, and ultimately to serve at the elbow of the country’s most powerful man. The code for deciphering his ascent to the inner circle of Russian power lies in the epochal whirl that gripped his hometown before it fully reclaimed its imperial moniker, St. Petersburg, and after the Soviet Union collapsed into memory in 1991."
********************
While there was a lot of ground covered here, the writing was a bit too flat and dry for my tastes. On the whole, I didn't really enjoy this one. I found myself getting frustrated with its tedium and slow pace many times.
2 stars.
May 14, 2025
Wow! the amount of research the author and her team put together in a relatively short period of time is astonishing. Before I read this I wasn't sure if I would be drawn into this one as I've never thought of myself as particularly interested in Russian politics. After the prologue though, I was eager to dig in and was blown away by the amount of information that was uncovered from such a secretive and corrupt nation. That said, this one is fascinating, detailed, informative and scary. The Wagner Group and how Putin used them to do his dirty work across the globe is frightening, and to know this stuff is still going on is downright alarming. My hope is that this information can be used to further protect us and our allies from the stench of such a poisoned government and hope that our President doesn't use Putin's methods in his own overreaching use of power.
thank you to the author, Public Affairs Publishing and Book Publicity Services for the gifted copy.
thank you to the author, Public Affairs Publishing and Book Publicity Services for the gifted copy.
July 21, 2025
If you are looking for a book simply about Russian mercenaries this book is not for you because it is so much more. The author does an incredible job of putting the rise of Russian “private” armies into the political and economic context of the decades since the end of the Cold War. This book is well researched and organized. A must read!
December 30, 2025
Review of: Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse
into Mercenary Chaos, by Candace Rondeaux
by Stan Prager (11-30-25)
On June 23, 2023, as the world watched with mouths collectively agape, longtime Vladimir Putin associate Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the notorious paramilitary force known as the Wagner Group, mounted a rebellion against the Russian military leadership over its fumbling prosecution of the war in Ukraine. Wagner mercenaries captured Rostov-on-Don almost unopposed and began a slow advance towards Moscow. This was not only the most significant challenge to Putin’s increasingly authoritarian rule, but the most consequential threat to the legitimacy of the post-Soviet state in the three decades since Boris Yeltsin used tanks to shutter the Duma to forestall his own impeachment. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Prigozhin called off the mutiny, and all criminal charges were dropped as he agreed to relocate Wagner forces to Belarus. Not long after, it was reported that Putin hosted Prigozhin at the Kremlin and fences were mended among the old allies, but few believed that would be the end of the story. So, on August 23rd—exactly two months to the day since the rebellion launched—perhaps it came as a surprise only to Prigozhin when the business jet carrying him and his associates exploded north of Moscow.
So who was Yevgeny Prigozhin? What was his actual relationship with Vladimir Putin? What role did the Wagner Group play as an extension of Russian power, not only in Ukraine but in Africa and the Middle East? And how could the thuggish ex-con paramilitary Prigozhin rise to such prominence to make international observers—albeit briefly—wonder aloud if he would be the instrument to topple the Putin regime? In a remarkable achievement, Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos [2025], international expert and Arizona State Professor of Practice Candace Rondeaux brilliantly addresses these questions and much more in an extremely well-written if dense account that is at once a kind of dual biography of Prigozhin and Putin as well as a nuanced history of post-Yeltsin Russia.
It turns out that the intersecting avenues of (pardon the inevitable alliteration) Prigozhin and Putin were to be found on the streets of St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad. It was there that teenage petty thief Yevgeny Prigozhin grew up to be a volent gang member who spent nearly a decade in prison before he found himself selling hot dogs alongside his mother in an open air market. Both street savvy and entrepreneurial at a fortuitous moment when a fierce, nascent capitalism served as tsar of the new Russian state, Prigozhin turned burgeoning profits first into the grocery store business, then, along with a pair of new partners, expanded into a variety of other enterprises that included the city’s first casinos. The restaurant business was next. Here the duality that marked his character was most evident—he was at once markedly intelligent and adept in his every endeavor, as well as coarse and cruel when it suited him. He hired strippers to lure in diners before word got around that the menu was superlative. And he casually meted out violence to employees who failed to live up to his expectations. Prigozhin redefined upscale dining when he remodeled a rusting hulk into a floating restaurant known as New Island that became one of St. Petersburg’s most fashionable eateries. New Island hosted key state dinners for Vladimir Putin, French president Jacques Chirac, and US president George W. Bush. Prigozhin personally served Putin on more than one occasion, which earned him the playful sobriquet of “Putin’s Chef.”
Putin, the former KGB agent who later remade Russia into his own fiefdom while dismantling the nation’s fledgling democracy of all but its most superficial forms, could be said to be as much of a thug as Prigozhin on many levels, even if a more polished and articulate one. Both St. Petersburg natives who made good, Putin went to university and Prigozhin went to prison. You can at once envision Prigozhin with bloody knuckles and Putin filing a nail while ordering a rival tossed out a window. The end result is the same. The two men most likely first encountered one another when the ex-con was in his casino business phase and Putin—who had held a number of significant political positions in the city—was serving as chairman of the supervisory board for casino gambling. Over time, they grew to be close associates, and even friends of a sort, with Prigozhin growing fabulously wealthy off government contracts awarded to his catering business. As Putin evolved from president to autocrat, he came to govern Russia much like an organized crime family, with his oligarchs—whose fortunes depended upon his favor—acting as loyal capos. Corruption clung to every corridor of Russian government and society. It suited Prigozhin well: he became a jet-setter who owned his own jets, and he moved into a compound that sported both a basketball court and a helicopter pad. And he diversified: some of his riches were pumped into Prigozhin’s so-called “Internet Research Agency,” a Russian troll factory later infamous for US election interference as it promoted Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton’s candidacy through a web of social media bots.
But it was as head of the Wagner Group that Prigozhin cemented his stature as a key oligarch closely aligned with Putin. A private military group that offered Russia plausible deniability in covert actions abroad, Wagner operated ruthlessly in geographies as remote from the Kremlin as Africa and the Middle East. Many found it impossible to unsee the widely circulated 2017 video of Wagner mercenaries first torturing and then using a sledgehammer to beat to death a deserter from the Syrian army. The sledgehammer became an unofficial Wagner emblem. But long before Syria, Wagner filled the ranks of the so-called “little green men” of professional soldiers with no insignia who appeared suddenly in 2014 in Crimea and in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, euphemistically identified by Moscow as organic separatists eager to secede and join the Russian Federation.
Putin’s brand of neofascist irredentism drew heavily on Hitler’s playbook. The Austrian Anschluss was almost effortlessly replayed in Crimea. And the Donbas would be the new Sudetenland. Meanwhile, Prigozhin and his Wagner Group would be the poorly disguised blunt instruments on the ground—as well as on plenty of other grounds, where shadow wars were conducted on distant continents and Russian power could be unofficially and mercilessly enforced. But absorbing eastern Ukraine proved a stubborn objective. And the West responded with economic sanctions rather than appeasement. Perhaps Poland 1939 would make for a better model?
On February 24, 2022, tanks rolled in, an act of unprovoked aggression not seen in Europe since World War II. But Russian ambitions turned out to be overoptimistic, to say the least. Putin expected to occupy Kyiv in a matter of days, but that was not to be. Ukraine held out. Joe Biden was president, not Donald Trump; Europe and NATO stood firm. But this spawned new opportunities for Prigozhin: he could rip off the mask, take Wagner out of the closet, and operate freely in Ukraine with his mercenaries as well as convicts recruited from Russia’s penal system. Yet, the war dragged on. Gains were few, Russian losses were magnified. Military effectiveness was handicapped by a culture of corruption not dissimilar to that which marked the rest of the state. Frustration fueled Prigozhin’s conviction that the stalemate might be broken if he was in charge, if only things could be done his way. He developed a heightened sense of self-importance. He clashed with high echelons of the military machine as well as with rival Russian nationalists. He made a lot of enemies. Still, Putin gave his old friend a lot of leash—until the day that Prigozhin came to believe his own bullshit. Putin’s chef proved to be the recipe for his own undoing.
Putin’s Sledgehammer is a magnificent book, but its inherent complexity and the level of detail it contains hardly makes for an easy read. I had the advantage of coming to it after previously poring through volumes by Peter Conradi on Russia, Thomas De Waal on the Caucuses, Serhii Plokhy on Ukraine, and Timothy Snyder on geopolitics. A talented writer whose work is based upon impeccable research, Candace Rondeaux ranks among those esteemed authors, but her work is not for beginners. Maps and a timeline would have been helpful. There’s also a dizzying array of characters, organizations, acronyms, etc. that are hard to keep track off, especially for those unfamiliar with Russian names and places. She does include is a somewhat comprehensive table of principal players, but because these are arranged by association rather than alphabetically it is less helpful than it should be. Still, these are quibbles. This book will likely not only come to be considered the definitive biography of Yevgeny Prigozhin, but will certainly be counted as an extremely valuable contribution to the historiography in ongoing studies of the contemporary Russian state.
I have previously reviewed these other related books that are recommended reading:
Review of: Who Lost Russia?: How the World Entered a New Cold War, by Peter Conradi
Review of: The Caucasus: An Introduction, by Thomas De Waal
Review of: The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, by Serhii Plokhy
Review of: The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History, by Serhii Plokhy
Review of: The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, by Timothy Snyder
Review of: Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos, by Candace Rondeaux
Review of: Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos, by Candace Rondeaux https://regarp.com/2025/11/30/review-...
into Mercenary Chaos, by Candace Rondeaux
by Stan Prager (11-30-25)
On June 23, 2023, as the world watched with mouths collectively agape, longtime Vladimir Putin associate Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the notorious paramilitary force known as the Wagner Group, mounted a rebellion against the Russian military leadership over its fumbling prosecution of the war in Ukraine. Wagner mercenaries captured Rostov-on-Don almost unopposed and began a slow advance towards Moscow. This was not only the most significant challenge to Putin’s increasingly authoritarian rule, but the most consequential threat to the legitimacy of the post-Soviet state in the three decades since Boris Yeltsin used tanks to shutter the Duma to forestall his own impeachment. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Prigozhin called off the mutiny, and all criminal charges were dropped as he agreed to relocate Wagner forces to Belarus. Not long after, it was reported that Putin hosted Prigozhin at the Kremlin and fences were mended among the old allies, but few believed that would be the end of the story. So, on August 23rd—exactly two months to the day since the rebellion launched—perhaps it came as a surprise only to Prigozhin when the business jet carrying him and his associates exploded north of Moscow.
So who was Yevgeny Prigozhin? What was his actual relationship with Vladimir Putin? What role did the Wagner Group play as an extension of Russian power, not only in Ukraine but in Africa and the Middle East? And how could the thuggish ex-con paramilitary Prigozhin rise to such prominence to make international observers—albeit briefly—wonder aloud if he would be the instrument to topple the Putin regime? In a remarkable achievement, Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos [2025], international expert and Arizona State Professor of Practice Candace Rondeaux brilliantly addresses these questions and much more in an extremely well-written if dense account that is at once a kind of dual biography of Prigozhin and Putin as well as a nuanced history of post-Yeltsin Russia.
It turns out that the intersecting avenues of (pardon the inevitable alliteration) Prigozhin and Putin were to be found on the streets of St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad. It was there that teenage petty thief Yevgeny Prigozhin grew up to be a volent gang member who spent nearly a decade in prison before he found himself selling hot dogs alongside his mother in an open air market. Both street savvy and entrepreneurial at a fortuitous moment when a fierce, nascent capitalism served as tsar of the new Russian state, Prigozhin turned burgeoning profits first into the grocery store business, then, along with a pair of new partners, expanded into a variety of other enterprises that included the city’s first casinos. The restaurant business was next. Here the duality that marked his character was most evident—he was at once markedly intelligent and adept in his every endeavor, as well as coarse and cruel when it suited him. He hired strippers to lure in diners before word got around that the menu was superlative. And he casually meted out violence to employees who failed to live up to his expectations. Prigozhin redefined upscale dining when he remodeled a rusting hulk into a floating restaurant known as New Island that became one of St. Petersburg’s most fashionable eateries. New Island hosted key state dinners for Vladimir Putin, French president Jacques Chirac, and US president George W. Bush. Prigozhin personally served Putin on more than one occasion, which earned him the playful sobriquet of “Putin’s Chef.”
Putin, the former KGB agent who later remade Russia into his own fiefdom while dismantling the nation’s fledgling democracy of all but its most superficial forms, could be said to be as much of a thug as Prigozhin on many levels, even if a more polished and articulate one. Both St. Petersburg natives who made good, Putin went to university and Prigozhin went to prison. You can at once envision Prigozhin with bloody knuckles and Putin filing a nail while ordering a rival tossed out a window. The end result is the same. The two men most likely first encountered one another when the ex-con was in his casino business phase and Putin—who had held a number of significant political positions in the city—was serving as chairman of the supervisory board for casino gambling. Over time, they grew to be close associates, and even friends of a sort, with Prigozhin growing fabulously wealthy off government contracts awarded to his catering business. As Putin evolved from president to autocrat, he came to govern Russia much like an organized crime family, with his oligarchs—whose fortunes depended upon his favor—acting as loyal capos. Corruption clung to every corridor of Russian government and society. It suited Prigozhin well: he became a jet-setter who owned his own jets, and he moved into a compound that sported both a basketball court and a helicopter pad. And he diversified: some of his riches were pumped into Prigozhin’s so-called “Internet Research Agency,” a Russian troll factory later infamous for US election interference as it promoted Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton’s candidacy through a web of social media bots.
But it was as head of the Wagner Group that Prigozhin cemented his stature as a key oligarch closely aligned with Putin. A private military group that offered Russia plausible deniability in covert actions abroad, Wagner operated ruthlessly in geographies as remote from the Kremlin as Africa and the Middle East. Many found it impossible to unsee the widely circulated 2017 video of Wagner mercenaries first torturing and then using a sledgehammer to beat to death a deserter from the Syrian army. The sledgehammer became an unofficial Wagner emblem. But long before Syria, Wagner filled the ranks of the so-called “little green men” of professional soldiers with no insignia who appeared suddenly in 2014 in Crimea and in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, euphemistically identified by Moscow as organic separatists eager to secede and join the Russian Federation.
Putin’s brand of neofascist irredentism drew heavily on Hitler’s playbook. The Austrian Anschluss was almost effortlessly replayed in Crimea. And the Donbas would be the new Sudetenland. Meanwhile, Prigozhin and his Wagner Group would be the poorly disguised blunt instruments on the ground—as well as on plenty of other grounds, where shadow wars were conducted on distant continents and Russian power could be unofficially and mercilessly enforced. But absorbing eastern Ukraine proved a stubborn objective. And the West responded with economic sanctions rather than appeasement. Perhaps Poland 1939 would make for a better model?
On February 24, 2022, tanks rolled in, an act of unprovoked aggression not seen in Europe since World War II. But Russian ambitions turned out to be overoptimistic, to say the least. Putin expected to occupy Kyiv in a matter of days, but that was not to be. Ukraine held out. Joe Biden was president, not Donald Trump; Europe and NATO stood firm. But this spawned new opportunities for Prigozhin: he could rip off the mask, take Wagner out of the closet, and operate freely in Ukraine with his mercenaries as well as convicts recruited from Russia’s penal system. Yet, the war dragged on. Gains were few, Russian losses were magnified. Military effectiveness was handicapped by a culture of corruption not dissimilar to that which marked the rest of the state. Frustration fueled Prigozhin’s conviction that the stalemate might be broken if he was in charge, if only things could be done his way. He developed a heightened sense of self-importance. He clashed with high echelons of the military machine as well as with rival Russian nationalists. He made a lot of enemies. Still, Putin gave his old friend a lot of leash—until the day that Prigozhin came to believe his own bullshit. Putin’s chef proved to be the recipe for his own undoing.
Putin’s Sledgehammer is a magnificent book, but its inherent complexity and the level of detail it contains hardly makes for an easy read. I had the advantage of coming to it after previously poring through volumes by Peter Conradi on Russia, Thomas De Waal on the Caucuses, Serhii Plokhy on Ukraine, and Timothy Snyder on geopolitics. A talented writer whose work is based upon impeccable research, Candace Rondeaux ranks among those esteemed authors, but her work is not for beginners. Maps and a timeline would have been helpful. There’s also a dizzying array of characters, organizations, acronyms, etc. that are hard to keep track off, especially for those unfamiliar with Russian names and places. She does include is a somewhat comprehensive table of principal players, but because these are arranged by association rather than alphabetically it is less helpful than it should be. Still, these are quibbles. This book will likely not only come to be considered the definitive biography of Yevgeny Prigozhin, but will certainly be counted as an extremely valuable contribution to the historiography in ongoing studies of the contemporary Russian state.
I have previously reviewed these other related books that are recommended reading:
Review of: Who Lost Russia?: How the World Entered a New Cold War, by Peter Conradi
Review of: The Caucasus: An Introduction, by Thomas De Waal
Review of: The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, by Serhii Plokhy
Review of: The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History, by Serhii Plokhy
Review of: The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, by Timothy Snyder
Review of: Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos, by Candace Rondeaux
Review of: Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos, by Candace Rondeaux https://regarp.com/2025/11/30/review-...
May 26, 2025
Very rarely is a book by someone with real expertise also written in such a lively and compelling style. Dr. Rondeaux is a leading expert on the Wagner group, with years of experience documenting and analyzing the Wagner group's history, propaganda, and activities around the globe. This book provides an in-depth account of the Wagner group's emergence and evolution, locating those events in the Russian and global political contexts that shaped them. Rondeaux' portrayal of the longstanding and bitter conflicts between the Wagner Group and Russian military leaders are also vivid and precise. Rondeaux's reporting is really in depth--it is widely know that Wagner recruited prisoners to fight in Ukraine, but Rondeaux reveals that Prigozhin had been building relationships with administrators in Russian's penal system long before 2022. An outstanding book that conveys original research in a readable, fast-paced narrative. Perfect for anyone interested in the Wagner group's history and current activities around the world.
June 7, 2025
Russian politics has always fascinated me, so I was drawn to this instantly, but I wasn't sure what to expect, as I've haven't read much on the subject previously, My interest mainly coming from t.v documentaries and films. But let me tell you, it certainly did not disappoint.
It's an incredibly detailed work, and it's clear the author has put in some considerable research on the topic, and alot is packed into those 380 pages, with more interesting detail in the quite comprehensive notes at the back.
The author is a world leading expert on the Wagner group, and here we have, presented in a concise, compelling style, an exhaustive account of the groups, emergence, rise, and evolution. Detailing the groups history, politics, propaganda, and activities around the world, complete with a number of absorbing photos in the centre of the book, an a thorough index at the back.
It's quite a niche subject, but I'm sure this book with have a wide audience of anyone interested in Russia, history or politics.
4 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 's from me.
It's an incredibly detailed work, and it's clear the author has put in some considerable research on the topic, and alot is packed into those 380 pages, with more interesting detail in the quite comprehensive notes at the back.
The author is a world leading expert on the Wagner group, and here we have, presented in a concise, compelling style, an exhaustive account of the groups, emergence, rise, and evolution. Detailing the groups history, politics, propaganda, and activities around the world, complete with a number of absorbing photos in the centre of the book, an a thorough index at the back.
It's quite a niche subject, but I'm sure this book with have a wide audience of anyone interested in Russia, history or politics.
4 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 's from me.
May 13, 2025
This book was clearly a labor of serious research. Packed with information on Wagner from its roots until today, it appears no stone was left unturned in this book. This is a heavy read, with some higher level vocabulary than I think many are accustomed to in a few places, but certainly the most thorough study you will find.
May 23, 2025
Incredible research, insider sources, and engaging writing combine to detail the creation and rise of the Wagner Group and its leaders. This is some dark and horrifying stuff, y'all. If "war crimes" is on your content warning list, take care. I did not anticipate how jumpy this book would make me during my nighttime reading. Really gripping. For nonfiction fans and readers interested in current events and Russian history.
July 24, 2025
Rondeaux manages an elaborate cast of characters and a complex storyline with more aplomb and clarity than many accomplished authors would, a sure sign she has a masterful grasp of the subject. The level of detail about so many members of Putin's circle and Wagner actors is at times overwhelming. But, in the end, the mesmerizing details make the narrative more compelling. The author's conclusion is clear: Putin's use of proxies and the internet is the latest evidence that you cannot fight the next war with the weapons of the last one.
May 13, 2025
Rondeaux's use of insider sourcing to uncover the alignment of the Wagner group as a mercenary outfit and its rise to becoming one of Putin's most utilized forces to advance his political ambitions is descriptive, and incredibly detailed.
November 22, 2025
2.75
informative but she made a book that ends in assassination boring :(
informative but she made a book that ends in assassination boring :(
June 9, 2025
This is a good book, well researched, focusing on all of Wagner's history, including their actions in Africa and Syria. I liked that the main people involved in Wagner were described really good and the book didn't focus only on Prigozhin as the one who is the most well-known.
It is a non-fiction book, but I didn't find it dry. I recommend the book without any doubt.
It is a non-fiction book, but I didn't find it dry. I recommend the book without any doubt.
June 26, 2025
Excellent piece of research! Full analysis to come.
July 26, 2025
The book traces the unlikely ascent of Yevgeny Prigozhin in parallel to the rise of Vladimir Putin. The two men’s prestige, power, and pernicious activity appear to escalate in tandem, much to the detriment of many others in Russia and globally 🇷🇺
.
Prigozhin took every advantage of his proximity to power in the early days, going from a restauranteur hosting events for the rich and (in)famous to gaining government investments allowing him to expand into the murky world of mercenary contracting. As founder of the Wagner Group he became head of “the world’s deadliest militia” known for extensive human rights abuses ☠️
.
This book is highly researched and detailed. On one hand that’s great because you get the full backstory on every player, but on the other it interrupts the narrative and becomes a little overwhelming 📖
.
There are many incredibly interesting aspects to this book:
⚒️The Wagner Group pervasiveness in online global disinformation tactics and election meddling.
🪆Russia’s active involvement in countries that the West have sanctioned (Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya… you name it).
😼The Bellingcat amateur sleuths who helped untangle the web of wrongdoing.
🇺🇦Russian prisoners being recruited as fodder for the war against Ukraine on the promise of future freedom (if they survived).
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If you have an interest in contemporary Russia and lawless baddies then this book could be for you. But be mindful of its academic depth if this isn’t a style you like ⛳︎
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Prigozhin took every advantage of his proximity to power in the early days, going from a restauranteur hosting events for the rich and (in)famous to gaining government investments allowing him to expand into the murky world of mercenary contracting. As founder of the Wagner Group he became head of “the world’s deadliest militia” known for extensive human rights abuses ☠️
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This book is highly researched and detailed. On one hand that’s great because you get the full backstory on every player, but on the other it interrupts the narrative and becomes a little overwhelming 📖
.
There are many incredibly interesting aspects to this book:
⚒️The Wagner Group pervasiveness in online global disinformation tactics and election meddling.
🪆Russia’s active involvement in countries that the West have sanctioned (Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya… you name it).
😼The Bellingcat amateur sleuths who helped untangle the web of wrongdoing.
🇺🇦Russian prisoners being recruited as fodder for the war against Ukraine on the promise of future freedom (if they survived).
.
If you have an interest in contemporary Russia and lawless baddies then this book could be for you. But be mindful of its academic depth if this isn’t a style you like ⛳︎
May 14, 2025
In Putin’s Sledgehammer, Candace Rondeaux delivers a gripping and incisive portrait of the Wagner Group, Russia’s most infamous mercenary army, and its unsettling rise from shadowy contractor to near-kingmaker. With the precision of a seasoned conflict analyst, Rondeaux unpacks how the Wagner Group's ascent exposed the deep fractures within Russia’s military and political systems, culminating in the 2023 armed march toward Moscow—a moment that felt, as she writes, “less like a rebellion and more like a dress rehearsal for collapse.”
Rondeaux's account goes beyond battlefield tactics, digging into the rot of corruption, the collapse of command structures, and the dangerous autonomy given to mercenary forces in Putin's Russia. Drawing on years of research and field expertise, she presents Wagner not as an outlier, but as the inevitable product of a state unraveling under the weight of its own contradictions.
This is not just a book about mercenaries—it’s a sharp warning about what happens when a government trades control for coercion. Putin’s Sledgehammer is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the volatile intersection of war, politics, and private power in the 21st century
Rondeaux's account goes beyond battlefield tactics, digging into the rot of corruption, the collapse of command structures, and the dangerous autonomy given to mercenary forces in Putin's Russia. Drawing on years of research and field expertise, she presents Wagner not as an outlier, but as the inevitable product of a state unraveling under the weight of its own contradictions.
This is not just a book about mercenaries—it’s a sharp warning about what happens when a government trades control for coercion. Putin’s Sledgehammer is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the volatile intersection of war, politics, and private power in the 21st century
July 7, 2025
Putin's Sledgehammer was an apt title for this in-depth look into Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group. In 2023, Prigozhin assembled an armed convey marching towards Moscow after releasing videos criticizing the support that it had provided to private military fighters in Ukraine. Candace Rondeaux pulls back the curtain on the rise of Prigozhin from a thug in Saint Petersburg to Putin's chef and fixer, heading a shadowy militia that allowed Russia plausible deniability in action in places like Syria, Africa, Ukraine, and the internet. This book provides context for headlines and shows how sanctions were supposed to work; Wagner was a way to skirt them so Russia can have hard currency to continue its campaigns. It also shows what happens when corruption is a way of life and there is a large group of veterans not being supported. Prigozhin's quick downfall stems from the Wagner Group emerging from the shadows. This was an interesting audiobook that must have taken a lot of research; I can't say that I can follow all of the names but the story made sense.
May 25, 2025
I appreciated the sharp focus on Prigozhin's evolution and the early chapters tracing Putin’s consolidation of control, which I thought gave some great insights into the foundations of Russia’s shadow operations.
but honestly, I DNFed this book at 25%. I really struggled with the book’s density as it progressed. there were a lot of detailed side tangents involving other figures and some intricate economic analyses, which at times left me overwhelmed & confused. I wasn’t always sure what to prioritise or hold onto with so many facts and layers, and I felt like what I was truly interested in (Prigozhin/Putin) was somewhat overshadowed by these details.
ultimately, this one wasn’t quite the right fit for me, but I recognise its depth and value for readers interested in geopolitics, covert operations, or modern Russian history.
but honestly, I DNFed this book at 25%. I really struggled with the book’s density as it progressed. there were a lot of detailed side tangents involving other figures and some intricate economic analyses, which at times left me overwhelmed & confused. I wasn’t always sure what to prioritise or hold onto with so many facts and layers, and I felt like what I was truly interested in (Prigozhin/Putin) was somewhat overshadowed by these details.
ultimately, this one wasn’t quite the right fit for me, but I recognise its depth and value for readers interested in geopolitics, covert operations, or modern Russian history.
May 6, 2025
PUTIN’S SLEDGEHAMMER by @candacerondeaux
find out how this wannabe actually wannamadeit into the highest levels of government and how he, shall we say, expanded his portfolio. a searing take on russia and the mindset of vladimir putin unrelentingly at the helm. carefully and in painstaking detail the author peels back the layers of silenced opposition, propaganda, and russia’s SOP (DARVO) to uncover how the machine works — and how willing its leaders are to sacrifice people to the meat grinder rather than admit fault or defeat (sunk cost fallacy, anyone).
it’s coming out SOON. may 13th. ukraine is still fighting for its life.
find out how this wannabe actually wannamadeit into the highest levels of government and how he, shall we say, expanded his portfolio. a searing take on russia and the mindset of vladimir putin unrelentingly at the helm. carefully and in painstaking detail the author peels back the layers of silenced opposition, propaganda, and russia’s SOP (DARVO) to uncover how the machine works — and how willing its leaders are to sacrifice people to the meat grinder rather than admit fault or defeat (sunk cost fallacy, anyone).
it’s coming out SOON. may 13th. ukraine is still fighting for its life.
September 2, 2025
Ever since the mentioning of the Wagner Group and its hydra-esque presence in the world, I've been curious about them. So when I came across Sledgehammer, I was intrigued. Tells of the rise Prigozhin from street thug to restauranteur to being in the Putin's inner circle, and eventually leading one the most diabolical Private Military Contractor (PMC): The Wagner Group. And like Icarus, his privilege got to his head and flew a bit too close to the bloody sun. Never underestimate Putin. Very sobering and a wee bit worrying.
June 6, 2025
Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. --Winston Churchill
Still holds true today. An exhaustive look into the rise and fall of one Yevgeny Prigoshin and his Wagner Group mercenary army. Pregoshin's story is a perverse Greek tragedy. He overreached and his fall from grace was precipitous, literally as well as figuratively. Nor is the book dissimilar to others that I have read about organized crime, Putin's regime is often likened to a gangster operation.
Still holds true today. An exhaustive look into the rise and fall of one Yevgeny Prigoshin and his Wagner Group mercenary army. Pregoshin's story is a perverse Greek tragedy. He overreached and his fall from grace was precipitous, literally as well as figuratively. Nor is the book dissimilar to others that I have read about organized crime, Putin's regime is often likened to a gangster operation.
June 29, 2025
This book is interesting and informative! The amount of research that Candace Rondeaux compiled for this book is astounding. I was drawn to the book by the title. I am one of many concerned citizens that has been perplexed by Russia's beef with Ukraine. This book explains some of the reasons and the power struggle within Russia's government.
I won a complimentary copy of this book from LibraryThing. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I won a complimentary copy of this book from LibraryThing. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
August 7, 2025
An incredible amount of research went into this book. While it was hard to keep all the names straight at times, it’s an amazing account of the rise and fall of the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin in particular. He and Putin are quite the pair. Unfortunately for Progozhin, he miscalculated and like so many others who threaten the power of Putin, and unfortunate accident befell him. And the US president thinks he can deal with this guy? 🤦♂️
August 16, 2025
"Putin's Sledgehammer" by Candace Roudeux delves into the dramatic rise and fall of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Mercenary Group. Roudeux provides a rare glimpse into the intricate workings of the Kremlin and its favored private military force. The book serves as both a biography of Prigozhin and an in-depth exploration of the Wagner Group, supported by extensive research. Vladimir Putin plays a central role in this narrative, and his influence is prominently highlighted throughout.
While the book excels in delivering detailed information, it occasionally falters under the weight of its own research. The abundance of background material, particularly at the beginning, can feel overwhelming and slow-paced, making it a challenge to engage with initially. However, for readers interested in the complex dynamics of power, politics, and mercenaries, "Putin's Sledgehammer" offers a wealth of fascinating insights into the deadly Wagner Group and its dramatic trajectory.
September 23, 2025
I simply do not have time to give this book a formal review. It was worth the read, detailing the nuances and and intricasies of the evolving Private Military Corporation (PMC)industry.
Candace Rondeaux is a journalist that I will continue to follow.
Candace Rondeaux is a journalist that I will continue to follow.
May 14, 2025
This was an incredible book that anyone with interest in Russia will enjoy. It is written with so much depth, yet reads like a thriller!
May 30, 2025
An important history of the Wagner group and its role in Russia’s internal and external affairs. But ultimately I didn’t find much interest in the overall narrative or the characters.
August 4, 2025
Probably a 4.5 if that was an option.
August 6, 2025
Genuinely would highly recommend to anyone.
September 18, 2025
it think that it is very informative and shows a deep understanding of Wagner's mercenary chaos and progizhan
October 15, 2025
Reads like a thriller
I could not put this book down. It is so well written and researched. The pace is brilliant.
I could not put this book down. It is so well written and researched. The pace is brilliant.
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