It's been one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As the Russian military has struggled in the war, tens of thousands of mercenary soldiers, many of them convicts recruited from Russian prisons, have joined the fight.
Veteran foreign correspondent Shaun Walker has written about the company that recruits and fields the mercenaries, the Wagner Group, as well as the colorful past of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He describes Prigozhin as a tough-talking ex-con who transformed himself, first into a powerful businessman and now a trusted warlord to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
