Misha Glenny made a name for himself as a BBC reporter during the collapse of the USSR and the Balkan wars. Then he well recognized the dark, bloody and incredibly successful activities of the Eastern European mafias - led by the Russian. "Between 1991 and 1996, the Russian state essentially withdrew itself from police control of society," Glennie writes. - There were no firm and clear definitions of organized crime, money laundering or extortion, and indirectly all commercial transactions were illegal and legal at the same time. This applied to drugs and women as well as cars, cigarettes and oil. Oligarchs and organized crime were tightly linked."