Definition
Authoritarian Patronage
Working definition of authoritarian patronage: systematic political, military, economic and intelligence support provided by the Russian regime to other authoritarian or hybrid regimes.
Black Cash / Chyornaya Kassa
Working definition of black cash / chyornaya kassa: off-the-books funds generated through criminal or semi-criminal activity and available for covert state or regime purposes.
Hybrid Statecraft
Working definition of hybrid statecraft: use of non-military tools (criminal networks, disinformation, energy, migration pressure, corruption) as instruments of foreign policy and internal control.
Kleptocracy
Working definition of kleptocracy as used on Kleptopedia: a system in which those in power exploit national resources for personal enrichment with near-total impunity.
Kremligarchs
Working definition of kremligarchs: business figures whose wealth and security depend on personal loyalty to the Putin circle; economic agents of the regime, not independent 1990s oligarchs.
Mafia State / Criminocracy
Working definition of mafia state / criminocracy: a polity in which boundaries between state institutions, security services and organised crime are systematically blurred.
Mobilisation State
Working definition of mobilisation state: post-2012/2022 shift in which criminal networks, black-cash channels and authoritarian alliances are treated as instruments of regime survival and hybrid warfare.
Patronage Networks
Working definition of patronage networks: informal hierarchical networks of mutual obligation, resource distribution and loyalty linking political, security, business and criminal actors.
Siloviki
Working definition of siloviki: officials and networks from the security, intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus (FSB, GRU, MVD, National Guard and related).
State–Crime Symbiosis
Working definition of state–crime symbiosis: documented pattern in which security services tax criminal networks, use them for deniable operations and grant selective impunity.
Uber Krysha
Working definition of Uber Krysha: the metaphor for the Kremlin as the ultimate ‘roof’ that licenses and disciplines oligarchs and criminal networks in exchange for loyalty.
Vertical of Power
Working definition of the vertical of power: hierarchical system in which key appointments, resource allocation and political decisions flow from the top (Putin and innermost circle).
Vory-v-zakone
Working definition of vory-v-zakone: historical professional criminal culture and hierarchy originating in the Soviet GULAG system; organisational templates that fed post-Soviet organised crime groups.