I was thinking a lot lately that Russia is not an autocratic state with a strongman at its helm but a mafia organisation posing as a state, with the tools, means, resources, and sovereign rights of a nation state.

I felt this aspect missing in the various analyses of Putin's war against Ukraine in the works of Anne Applebaum, Timothy Snyder, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Masha Gessen, and others, leaving their descriptions and inquiries kind of awry and missing he point.

But it seems there has been at least one author thinking along those lines I am pursuing: Bálint Magyar, in his work from 2016 on "Mafia State", taking Hungary as example. (Kudos to Masha Gessen for mentioning his work, although mentioning it only in passing, without taking it more seriously.)

Eager to read this book when it arrives.

#sources #Russia #Putin