Mafia state is a term which has been used to describe the political system in Russia under Vladimir Putin's rule. The term came to prominence following the United States diplomatic cables leak, which revealed that US diplomats viewed Putin's Russia as a "a corrupt, autocratic kleptocracy centred on the leadership of Vladimir Putin, in which officials, oligarchs and organised crime are bound together to create a 'virtual mafia state.'" Former Russia correspondent of The Guardian, Luke Harding, who was expelled from Russia in 2011, released the book Mafia State in 2011. According to Harding, Putin has "created a state peopled by ex KGB and FSB officers like himself, bent on making money above all." In the estimation of American diplomats, "the government [of Russia] effectively [is] the mafia."

According to the New Statesman, "the term had entered the lexicon of expert discussion" several years before the cables leak, "and not as a frivolous metaphor. Those most familiar with the country had come to see it as a kleptocracy with Vladimir Putin in the role of capo di tutti capi, dividing the spoils and preventing turf wars between rival clans of an essentially criminal elite." In 2008, Stephen Blank noted that Russia under Putin is "a state that European officials privately call a Mafia state" that "naturally gravitates toward Mafialike behavior." Putin's decision to run for a new term as President in 2012 led to Russia being downgraded from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime in the 2011 Democracy Index.

The Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra) is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering. Each group, known as a "family", "clan", or "cosca", claims sovereignty over a territory in which it operates its rackets – usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (borgata) of a larger city. Its members call themselves "men of honour", although the public often refers to them as "mafiosi".

According to the classic definition, the Mafia is a criminality originating in Sicily - i.e. Cosa Nostra. However, the term "mafia" has become a generic term for any organized criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests.

The Mafia proper frequently parallels, collaborates with or clashes with, networks originating in other parts of southern Italy, such as the Camorra (from Campania), the 'Ndrangheta (from Calabria), the Stidda (southern Sicily) and the Sacra Corona Unita (from Apulia). However, Giovanni Falcone, the anti-Mafia judge murdered by the Mafia in 1992, objected to the inflation of the use of "Mafia" to organized crime in general:

State commonly refers to either the present condition of a system or entity, or to a governed entity (such as a country) or sub-entity (such as a province or region).

Luke Daniel Harding (born 1968) is a British political journalist working for The Guardian newspaper. He was the correspondent of The Guardian in Russia from 2007 until he was expelled from the country in 2011 over his critical articles. His 2011 book Mafia State discusses the political system in Russia under Vladimir Putin, which he describes as a mafia state.

Harding studied English at Oxford University. While there he edited the student newspaper Cherwell. He worked for the Sunday Correspondent, the Evening Argus in Brighton and then the Daily Mail before joining The Guardian in 1996.

In 2007, The Guardian apologized for material in an article by Harding that was "substantially similar" to another article published earlier that year in the eXile.

In February 2011 Harding was refused entry into Russia. He thus became the first foreign journalist to be expelled from Russia since the end of the Cold War. The Guardian linked his expulsion with his unflattering coverage of Russia, including speculation about Vladimir Putin's wealth and Putin's knowledge of the London assassination of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. The director of Index on Censorship, John Kampfner, commented "The Russian government's treatment of Luke Harding is petty and vindictive, and evidence – if more was needed – of the poor state of free expression in that country." Elsa Vidal, head of the European and Central Asia desk at the media freedom watchdog, stated: "This is a serious and shocking step, unprecedented since the Cold War [...] It's an attempt to force correspondents working for foreign media in Moscow to engage in self-censorship."

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин; IPA: [vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] ( listen); born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician who has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008 and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin also serves as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when president Boris Yeltsin resigned in a surprising move. Putin won the 2000 presidential election; in 2004 he was re-elected for a second term lasting until 7 May 2008.

Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term. After his successor Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election, Putin was nominated by Medvedev to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took office on 8 May 2008 and a period of so-called "tandemocracy" followed. In September 2011, Putin and Medvedev agreed he should seek a third, non-consecutive term in the 2012 presidential election, which he won in the first round on 4 March 2012.