"siloviki" is literally a "men of power" ("sila" in Russian is "power" in English) => these include the FSB (an FBI equivalent, or the ex-KGB in practice) and MVD (the police). That's it.
Good news - as result of Ukraine war failure these lowlifes are starting to eat each other - the director of foreign intelligence of FSB has just got arrested for "embezzling money intended for sabotage and gathering of intelligence in Ukraine and for providing false information about political situation in Ukraine" :)
"Meanwhile, panic appears to be setting in within Putin’s inner circle, with the Russian leader allegedly firing eight generals and putting the head of his FSB spy arm Sergei Beseda and his deputy under house arrest"
All that while 3 generals have already been killed in Ukraine in addition to uncounted number of officers with no major military success. That is bound to cause "friction" between various arms of the "siloviki". There is also a large fight brewing between FSB and Chechens (they have been in "cold war" state) as large convoy of Chechen forces in Ukraine was completely destroyed by Ukrainians based on information that seems to had been leaked by FSB.
Putin surrounded himself with yes men. These people are afraid to displease Putin and end up taking shortcuts left and right to give him what he wants. Only fear is keeping this system from crumbling, they’re all afraid of eachother.
“ Soldierov told the British Times that it could well be that the FSB had realistic knowledge of the situation in Ukraine - the only question was what was passed on to Putin.
"The problem lies in the fact that it is often risky for those responsible to tell Putin things that he doesn't want to hear," Soldierov said.”
Anybody who watched just some Ukrainian TV (I like Zelensky's humor production) in recent years knew it, no need for whole spy agency. Of course they told Putin what he wanted to hear.
Are you sure about that? I know Google Translate says "vlast" but I speak a Slavic language and "vlast" means motherhood/home in my language. Could be just the online translation not being accurate?
Tons of "false friends" between Slavic languages. E.g. "urod" could mean "beauty" in some and "freak" in others. In Russian "sila" means primarily "force" or "strength" and in the context of "siloviki" it refers to the armed forces and law enforcement as the top of this thread states.
Thanks for the laugh. An automated translation tools, especially dumbed down online ones, never work right because they don't have a context or a means to provide it.
Mind you, you changed 'strength' (noun) to 'strong' (adj) in your example.
"He is forceful" if you insist on playing this game. Another derived adjective if forcible but it has a bit more elusive meaning (forcible entry into a building)
