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In parts of Siberia where by summer the sort of the huge clouds of mosquitoes would arise, I mean one of the things they could do, the guards could do is literally

just stake you out and in the course of a day you would be killed by a mosquito bite. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from

behind the front lines. Here are your hosts, Matthew Gault. Who runs Russia? Is it Vladimir Putin's government? Is it the oligarchs? Is it the FSB? Is it the criminal gangs? Well, what if the answer is yes?

Friend of the show, Mark Aliati is a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague.

He's a Russia expert, and he's here to talk with us today about his new book.

The Vori, Russia's super mafia, explores Russia's rich criminal traditions, and they are rich.

Mark, thanks so much for joining us.

Always a pleasure.

So let's just start off with what is the Vori?

The short answer is the Vori, simply means the thieves in in Russian is the name

So the overall Portmanteau name for the kind of

professional criminal subculture that emerged particularly in the 20th century and still survives today but in rather different form. But essentially, I mean in a way these are the tattooed hard men we know and love from film and TV.

People who had actually sort of moved into a kind of professional existence as criminals, but who also had made a cultural choice.

These were, well, shall you say, were also the made men of the Russian underworld.

The people who really had submerged themselves in the realms of organized crime.

So how systematized is it? Are there rules, code of ethics, that kind of thing?

Yeah, I mean what it was, and again, this is just... rules, the code of ethics, that kind of thing.

...