Kleptopedia / The Anatomy of the System
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Siloviki

Siloviki

Term (RU): Силовики
Schema: DefinedTerm

Working Definition

Officials and networks originating from or currently belonging to the security, intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus (FSB, GRU, MVD, National Guard, and related structures).

Analytical Use on This Site

“Siloviki” (from сила, “force”) is the standard analytical shorthand for the cluster of actors whose primary institutional base is the state’s coercive and intelligence organs. On this site the term is used to:

  • identify a key set of agents within the vertical of power;
  • map documented interfaces between security services and selected criminal or grey networks (taxation, protection, instrumentalisation);
  • distinguish security-service centred patronage from purely commercial or purely political patronage.

Individual siloviki who appear as entity cards (Patrushev, Bortnikov, Naryshkin, Bastrykin and others) are treated as nodes within this broader category rather than as isolated personalities.

Key Sources

  • Secondary academic and think-tank literature on Russian security services and elite politics
  • Galeotti and GI-TOC work on the interfaces between siloviki structures and organised crime
  • Open sanctions designations and official biographies that establish institutional affiliation

See Also

Key Sources & Evidence Base

  • Secondary literature on Russian security services and elite dynamics secondary
  • Galeotti and related analyses of siloviki–crime interfaces secondary

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