Over the past decade, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's top henchmen was the man behind Russia's most notorious mercenary forces.

Yvgeny Progogian was Putin's confidant, enforcer, and the mastermind of the paramilitary Wagner group, once a trusted ally of the Kremlin.

His fate took a dramatic turn ending in a mysterious plane crash. A new book delves deep into the rise and fall of progosion in Putin's Russia.

Nick Schifrin recently sat down with the author.

Long ago, the sledgehammer was an icon of Soviet industry.

But in Vladimir Putin's Russia, it's been transformed into a symbol of savagery and an emblem of Russian resurgence,

thanks to the now notorious paramilitary group Wagner.

Wagner was born out of St. Petersburg, where Vladimir Putin rose in politics and first

met Yevgeny Progossian, the man who had become known as Putin's chef, across Africa,

to the digital battlefield of the 2016 election, to eastern Ukraine.

Wagner and Progogian became not only mercenary soldiers. They projected Russian power

as an integral instrument for Putin's confrontation with the West and attempt to reshape

the world order. That is the story told in Putin's sledgehammer, the Wagner group and

Russia's collapse into mercenary chaos by Candice Rondo, who joins me here.

Candice Rondo, thanks very much. Welcome to the news hour. Thank you. You write that Wagner

became an advertisement for a more muscular Russia, one determined to rewrite the rules

of the international order to its advantage.

How so?

Well, in a couple different ways.

The Wagner Group really reshaped Russia's image as a great power, made it sort of more

more agile, more powerful than perhaps it really is. Most importantly, it gave the sense that

Russia could reach anywhere at any time. And what it really showed was that Vladimir Putin's

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