Gessen makes clear it is Mafia-like in functioning, but one mostly not held together by genetic ties. The linkages are more friendships and associations going back decades, to Putin's KGB or even school days.
The upshot is there is little interest in ideology, other than dislike of the "other" or outsiders - non-Russians. And there is little killing for its own sake, mostly bribery, coercion and intimidation get the job done.
Gessen quotes Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar who claims a mafia state operates as follows:
To understand what a mafia state is, we need to imagine a state run by, and resembling, organized crime. At its center is a family, and at the center of the family is a patriarch. He doesn’t govern, he disposes—of positions, wealth, statuses, persons.The final part of the article describes how a Russian oligarch - found dead of blunt force trauma in a Washington, DC, hotel room - got on the wrong side of godfather/patriarch Putin.
