Silovik

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In the Russian political context, the siloviki (Russian: силовики; sing. silovik, силовик) are a group of officials originating in the 1990s from the state-security organs, the armed forces, and law-enforcement structures who have occupied positions in the highest echelons of state power in the Russian Federation. Agencies classified as part of the "power ministries" include the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), the Ministry of Defence, the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), and other structures vested with the authority to use force and charged with functions of defense, state security, and public order. The term is not codified in Russian legislation and is used primarily in political science and journalistic literature as an analytical category describing a segment of the elite professionally socialized within institutions of coercion and security and retaining corporate ties after transitioning to civilian governmental positions. The emergence of the...

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