Putin’s Sledgehammer by Candace Rondeaux

When I was asked to review Putin’s Sledgehammer by Candace Rondeaux* – The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos – I read about the author before replying an excited: yes! My assumption was that the book will focus mainly on Ukraine, or at least over 50% of it, and the rest focused on Yevgeny Prigozhin. It was not at all, the book is very much about Wagner in all of its 10-year history and its structure, which involves Prigozhin, but it is not central to him. I liked that a lot, hence the well deserved 5 stars.

The book has a lot of information for its size, which is under 400 pages without notes and index. It follows the main people involved in the Wagner Group, a russian PMC, linked to the kremlin and to putin for years before it was finally admitted shortly before the downfall of Prigozhin and his team. The name, Wagner, is after Hitler’s favourite composer, chosen by its far-right founder, Dmitry Utkin. The name of the book is very appropriate too, as Wagner became an internationally recognised organisation after members of the group executed a man with a sledgehammer.

Rondeaux talked about the people involved, the group’s involvement in Ukraine in 2014, in Syria, in a few countries in Africa, such as Mali, and the renew involvement after the full-scale invasion of 2022. A week into the full-scale invasion it was clear that kremlin did a spectacular blunder by expecting a swift victory, expecting to be welcomed with flowers in Ukraine and not as they were, with Molotov cocktails. At that point Wagner appeared in Ukraine, in March 2022. But this part is only the ending of the book, with the first 300 pages being about the organisation and their crimes in Syria and Africa.

The PMC was used by russia and the kremlin to create a grey area. They would do what the kremlin wanted and the kremlin would have deniability. The west would simply ignore the situation and hope for the best. Prigozhin was a criminal who started selling hot dogs and grew from there to cater for foreign dignitaries and to open a troll-factory. Utkin, with his SS tattoo on the neck, was dealing with the day-to-day activities of the group.

The book has descriptions of torture and killings, but seldom and not gratuitous. These are needed to be known to better understand the barbarity of the PMC. The only critic I have of the book is that Rondeaux is so used to her russian-based sources that misses some nuances. For example, she wrote the incorrect forms for Odesa and Moldova, she did not consider Ukraine’s agency to the full extent it has. While she went to Kyiv after the liberation of the region and correctly described what happened in places like Bucha and Irpin and the connection to Wagner, she still has a slight view of Ukraine through the eyes of russian liberals/opposition. This is a small critique I felt I needed to add. Nevertheless, I highly recommend the book.

Putin’s Sledgehammer by Candace Rondeaux

Details about the picture: –
My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes
Published by: PublicAffairs
Year it was published: 2025
Format: Hardcover
Genre(s): History – non-European – russia
Pages: 480

About the author: Candace Rondeaux is an expert on international affairs, US national security, irregular warfare, and the strategic use of organized violence. Her book, Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos (PublicAffairs, May 2025), reveals how mercenaries, mobsters, and oligarchs have become central tools of Kremlin power projection.She serves the Senior Director for the Future Frontlines program at New America, an open-source public intelligence service for next-generation security and democratic resilience. She also directs the Planetary Politics initiative, a cross-disciplinary program that aims to find solutions to the wicked problems posed by digitization and decarbonization in a multipolar world. Rondeaux is also a professor of practice with the Future Security Initiative at Arizona State University and a faculty affiliate with ASU’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies. Before joining New America and ASU, she served as a Senior Program Officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she led the RESOLVE Network, a global research consortium on countering violent extremism. As Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan and Strategic Adviser to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, she produced high-impact analysis on national elections and security sector reform.Rondeaux’s writing career began on the crime and courts beat, covering breaking news across New York, Florida, Virginia, and Maryland. An award-winning journalist, she reported from Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks for the New York Daily News, chronicled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for the St. Petersburg Times, and was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. Her reporting later took her to the frontlines of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where she served as the Post’s bureau chief. Her analysis and commentary have also been regularly featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Lawfare, Small Wars Journal, Just Security, Daily Beast, and World Politics Review. She has testified before Congress and provided expert advice to several UN panels and commissions on conflict, the protection of civilians, transnational organized crime, and the outsourcing of violence. She has documented political violence and conflicts in hotspots around the world, including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Georgia, and Ukraine. She holds a B.A. in Russian Area Studies from Sarah Lawrence College, an M.A. in Journalism from NYU, and an M.P.P. from Princeton University.
Website & Social Media Links: –

*I received a review copy. All opinions are my own.