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Than a fortress. a guard soon comes up to us. is the church only for vagner i ask, i don't know he says. i for the people who were in syria i press him? i don't know, i'm telling you, he says, i'm just guarding here. he begins to get suspicious of our question and we decide to leave. they didn't let us inside which is not surprising because in that compound is the only tangible visible proof that vagner is real. no surprise perhaps that the monument is funded by a -- owned company. it was five years ago mysterious unidentified fighters dubbed little green men helped moskow rest the province fr...

Company were like me, and they were motivated by money. >> reporter: what sort of training was it? where did it take place? >> translator: you know i didn't have any training as such, not then anyway. i spent six days in the training camp. i went to a firing range twice and shot a machine gun once. that was it. >> reporter: cnn traveled to the remote russian village to try to get to the training camp and found the group has a surprisingly close relationship with the russian military. the only way to get into the vagner barracks is to get through that checkpoint which is man bide the russian mi...

He concedes also money played a huge part in it, too. and i think his disillusionment with vagner is because it's technically illegal in russia, they're not given the same level of support or respect or sort of infrastructure that you would be if you worked for a company that was a proper legal entity. he felt very much he wanted to see this whole thing, these mercenary groups legalized and made public and therefore given some kind of a credibility. >> clearly your reporting got under the skin of the kremlin. russia is now accusing you of being a spy and they have gone as far as to follow you,...

Use of mercenary forces has since grown. analysts say none of this could happen without putin's approval. do you think that part of the mission of vagner is to help russia restore its role to become a major global super power again? >> translator: yes, 100%. this is the top priority for vagner. >> reporter: and so it's trying to be a rival to america? >> translator: russia is trying to suppress the u.s. in every way possible using legal and illegal means. it's trying to smash it, get the better of it somehow. what will come of it? as a result, nothing good i think. >> reporter: but for russian...