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Siloviki

The Siloviki (the word is plural and rooted in a Russian term for power) are Russian men from the old security or military services, often the KGB and military officers or other security services who rode into power on the coattails of Boris Yeltsin or Vladimir Putin.

Some think they have Russia by the throat and threaten their fragile democracy, and their power is immense. Some contrast them to American gangsters such as Al Capone, who nearly ran the American city of Chicago.

They tend to favor a statist ideology at the expense of individual rights and freedoms.

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