Russian and other post-Soviet criminal networks today: what needs fresh research

Epigraph

“hatred does not cease by hatred”.

Dhammapada, I.5, translated by F. Max Müller; a short excerpt.

What this article is about

Consider fictional Anton, an adult who can coordinate correspondence in several languages. He receives an offer to help an international service. An acquaintance says the tasks are simple and that people from their own background have worked together for years. Anton knows only a small part of the work. We know neither his country, the client, future actions nor whether pressure or crime is involved. His story comes from no investigation; this article establishes neither guilt nor a safe next step. It asks why a current network cannot be understood through familiar speech, an image of the 1990s or one prominent name, and why proximity to that image does not explain a person.

I. The present begins with a date and a subject

The words today and post-Soviet networks suggest a large common map. Yet the years since the Soviet Union dissolved have not turned different countries into one organisation. A meaningful account must identify its subject: a particular case, a service for several groups, relations within one structure or a threat assessment for one country. Otherwise the reader quietly receives an answer to a different question. A famous leader's history replaces current activity, and one group of arrested people comes to represent everyone with a similar background.

This article considers selected recent official accounts and their limits, as read on 20 October 2026. Its central example is the NCA's description of Smart and TGR; a separate Eurojust account of a financial service supplies a limited comparison. This is an entry into the subject, not a survey of every post-Soviet country. An unrepresented country is declared neither free of criminal networks nor a hidden part of the system already described. Either conclusion would need its own evidence, rather than a more expansive reading of the title.

A study also changes when its publication is recent but its events are older. Publication dates tell us when an agency spoke, not necessarily when the activity occurred. A new article may describe an earlier investigation. Asking what is known now therefore includes asking which period the knowledge concerns. Without that distinction, the appearance of freshness conceals a comparison between different times. This accuracy matters beyond academic neatness: it affects who is assigned a current role, and on what grounds.

Anton also lives through a sequence of events. An initial offer and a possible later discovery cannot be combined into one moment of complete knowledge. Equally, earlier ignorance does not automatically settle every later question. Ethical consideration requires a sequence: what he understood, what he was told, what he did and what changed. These are questions for careful examination, rather than a ready formula for either accusation or exoneration from a few messages. We cannot supply their answers merely by imagining a familiar kind of person.

II. Language connects people without establishing membership

The NCA's 2026 summary describes specialist services, outsourced functions and more fragmented networked forms. Its selected passage says Russian-speaking laundering networks serve various clients, including, in some cases, state-linked actors. This is an assessment of threats to the United Kingdom. It establishes neither membership for Russian speakers generally, one centre of post-Soviet crime nor the disappearance of hierarchies within particular organisations.

The distinction starts in ordinary experience. Shared speech helps people understand a joke, arrange a meeting or ask for a letter to be translated. None of these actions by itself proves joint offending. Nationality, citizenship, birthplace and language are not interchangeable answers either. Even when a source describes a network through language, that supplies no reason to extend the description to a diaspora. An account of a limited subject otherwise becomes an accusation against people whose actions have never been examined.

The reverse mistake is to treat familiarity as sufficient reason to trust every request. Anton may find communication easier with someone who recognises his expressions and past experience. That convenience is real and need not be declared suspicious. It does not establish the contents of future work, however. Familiar language answers a question about communication; authority, obligations and consequences require other answers. One human quality cannot do the work of every other reason, even when it makes an unfamiliar situation feel much more understandable.

This approach preserves room for lawful mutual assistance. Community support, translation and professional acquaintance need not justify their existence because criminal networks exist. Equally, their good names do not make every particular practice lawful or free from abuse. Actual actions and relationships matter. Asking what such people are like by nature makes a person disappear twice: first behind suspicion of a group, then behind a promise that people from one's own background cannot cause harm. Neither generalisation describes the relationship in front of us.

III. Cooperation does not establish a single command

The NCA's Operation Destabilise release of 21 November 2025 presents Smart and TGR as cooperating networks serving transnational crime. It also reports connections with evading financial restrictions and state interests. This is an attributed account at the release date, not a complete set of court judgments or a current check on every named person and sanctions decision.

Cooperation differs substantially from subordination. Two structures can use the same service without becoming one family. Contact with an intermediary does not describe the whole chain of decisions. Establishing common leadership needs evidence of leadership itself: one shared name or client is insufficient. We make no opposite finding that no hierarchy exists. Restraint means leaving open what the selected documents do not establish, rather than filling a gap with confidence in the contrary conclusion. A simpler story is not necessarily a more accurate one.

For a person near the work, this difference is tangible. Anton may know the person relaying a request without understanding who sets its purpose. His immediate contact may have limited authority, or substantial authority; the fiction specifies neither. We need not invent a criminal headquarters to recognise incomplete knowledge. Nor does the absence of a visible headquarters prove every task harmless. A small familiar fragment is different from an intelligible whole, however calm the conversation or ordinary the professional language used to describe it.

A network's name can guide research but can also become a ready explanation for every action. It may gather information from different episodes and procedural stages. A more precise question is which connection the source alleges and what supports it. Organisational proximity, a service, alleged assistance, leadership and personal acquaintance should not collapse into undifferentiated membership. It is at these transitions that generalisation begins to add harm. Identifying the transition is part of understanding the case, rather than an excuse for ignoring it.

IV. A service connects participants without erasing differences

The Eurojust release of 27 January 2025 describes a financial service for other criminal organisations and contacts outside its own structure. It reports actions in October and November 2024, 23 arrests and continuing investigation. This is a separate comparative case. The accessible text establishes neither a particular nationality for participants, identity with Smart/TGR nor final convictions for everyone arrested.

The example helps distinguish function from common identity. When several actors use one provider, a researcher gains a question about connections, not a complete answer about structure. Ordinary lawful economic activity also uses outside services; similarity of form does not prove criminal contents. We cannot therefore declare all international services or subcontracting suspicious. The separate question remains what was done, with what knowledge and in which circumstances. A structural resemblance should not quietly replace the facts needed to describe particular activity.

Divided work creates an ethical question that a job title cannot settle. Saying that one only handled correspondence describes a possible action without automatically establishing its meaning. It might concern wholly lawful work, ignorance of important circumstances, knowing assistance or action under pressure. We select none of these possibilities for Anton. What matters is being able to discuss their differences without turning a small role into either complete innocence or knowledge of everything. The scope of a task and the scope of a person's understanding must both remain questions.

This discussion should not become a demand that a person investigate a hidden network alone. Missing information may be unavailable and may not be obtainable safely. The article's purpose is more limited: not to replace the unknown with a convenient formula. Connections between an action and possible harm merit consideration even when a person does not control a system. Legal responsibility, coercion and particular duties nevertheless depend on established circumstances and applicable law. Recognising the question does not mean an observer has acquired the authority or information to decide it.

V. Agency accounts and personal guilt have different limits

The same NCA release reports particular convictions separately from arrests during the operation. Those statuses cannot be levelled out. Convictions involving some people do not transform every other agency statement into a judgment against everyone. This article has not checked complete judgments, later appeals or each person's current position. Naming the source preserves the value of its account while preventing us from assigning it greater evidential force than the material actually read. Accuracy includes both what was established and what was not examined here.

A reader may feel impatient with distinctions when harm is at stake. Precision does not make harm less serious, however. When accusation concerns an undefined population, real actions disappear into a general characterisation. An injured person also has reason to resist having their experience replaced by a story about what such people are generally like. Naming events, roles and statuses keeps the subject visible. It leaves room for responsibility and for correction of mistaken accusation, without requiring us to choose only one of those concerns.

A sanctions decision, an arrest and a report of a conviction each have their own history. An older date cannot establish current status without a separate check. This matters especially when an account connects financial crime, state interests and war. A connection alleged in one episode does not make every citizen an agent of that state. Equally, a state-related theme does not remove the need to examine particular connections where there is evidence. Neither collective attribution nor avoidance of the subject does that work.

For Anton, this sets a limit on other people's certainty. A neighbour, article writer or acquaintance cannot reliably determine his legal position from a profession alone. His own understanding may also be incomplete. Between these limits there remains human work: distinguishing knowledge from supposition, avoiding demands for disclosure made out of curiosity and making no advance promise of a desired outcome. Respect does not require pretending every difficult question has been resolved. It requires allowing the questions to concern this person's circumstances, rather than an invented complete biography.

VI. What fresh research must ask

The first question is whether a connection described in an older text still exists. A familiar name may remain in publications although participants' roles have changed; it may also describe a continuing structure. Repetition of the name alone establishes neither possibility. Evidence must concern the relevant period, with clarity about which parts of the network it describes. Contemporary should refer to the evidence, rather than decorate a familiar story. Otherwise a current title lends authority to circumstances that have not actually been checked again.

A second question concerns the perspective a source makes visible. A UK threat assessment explains a British agency's concerns; it need not simultaneously provide a complete picture of all affected communities. An investigation release shows selected established or alleged connections, rather than exhaustive biographies of everyone nearby. That does not make such documents useless. It gives us reason to choose questions they can actually answer and notice what remains outside their scope. Recognising a source's remit is part of using it seriously.

Comparability also matters. If several detailed releases were read about one country but only a headline was available about another, the number of names found cannot measure their respective crime levels. Unequal access to evidence remains a feature of our research, not a characteristic of their populations. Nor does the absence of a read report prove that harm is absent. Comparison requires compatible subjects, periods and ways of gathering evidence. This article has conducted no such comparative survey of post-Soviet countries.

A third question concerns less visible people: those harmed, witnesses, relatives, ordinary workers and people with limited knowledge. Their situations cannot be filled in with one psychology. A relative may be unaware of actions, a worker may understand part, and an injured person may both need and fear a connection. These possibilities are not presented as statistical features of a network. They identify information missing from a particular human judgment. Finally, photographs, nicknames or sporting backgrounds may be memorable while answering little about actions. A valuable new finding may simply be that an earlier conclusion was too broad or a role remains unknown.

VII. Partial knowledge and pressure leave a person visible

Anton may need income and value professional recognition. Neither need nor gratitude proves willingness to participate in crime. Yet an uncomfortable sense of dependence does not automatically establish unlawful coercion either. Ordinary contracts constrain participants; a difficult conflict can exist without a criminal organisation. Discussing abuse or coercion requires attention to the relationship's particular contents, rather than the intensity of anxiety or the prominence of a general name. A person's discomfort deserves attention without being made to prove a whole account of organisational structure.

Suppose Anton later learns something important about possible harm from the work. This is a new condition in our fiction, not an established event in his biography. It changes the questions needing consideration without making him retrospectively aware of everything. Attention to sequence makes responsibility discussable without imaginary omniscience. It also prevents initial ignorance becoming permanent exemption from considering subsequent actions. Actions, knowledge and circumstances matter, rather than a single final label for the whole person. The later question should be examined on its own actual grounds.

A person under real pressure may have less room for decisions than an observer imagines. We do not know whether Anton faces that pressure and establish no measure of his freedom. Fear merits attention without an immediate demand to prove it publicly. Looking at one's actions is also possible without treating vulnerability as a moral defect. These tasks need not destroy each other. Support does not require declaring someone guilty or blameless in advance, and uncertainty need not erase the seriousness of their position.

The article itself has limits. It determines no safe refusal, approach to authorities or services, negotiation, departure or independent examination of participants. Present circumstances require separate assessment of rights, duties, access to help, confidentiality and protection conditions. This does not prohibit lawful assistance or declare all contact dangerous. It prevents an author promising that a general ethical thought has already resolved a particular situation. There can be value in recognising a question before knowing which concrete action, institution or legal provision can address it.

VIII. A person is more than a useful link

In Kant's discussion of humanity as an end, Second Section, translated by T. K. Abbott, the word only matters: a person should not become merely a means. This does not prohibit mutually using lawful services. The ethical question arises where someone's own purposes cease to matter to those using their actions. This reading helps discuss dignity; it establishes neither a criminal offence nor the safety of a particular decision. Its ethical force should not be confused with a jurisdiction's evidential or legal test.

In the fiction, we can ask whether Anton remains someone with questions, needs and limits, or is expected only to complete his fragment reliably. Division of labour alone does not answer: lawful collaboration also distributes tasks. The issue is neither a romantic demand for complete independence nor suspicion of every manager, but the treatment of a person in actual conditions. Is there room to understand obligations, consider his position and address the responsibility of decision makers? These questions remain meaningful without assuming every difficult relationship has one criminal explanation.

The same standard concerns observers. Turning Anton into a convenient example of a bad community also stops seeing a person. Turning someone harmed into material for an impressive exposé does something similar. A storyteller has responsibility for the boundaries of their own statements. They need not expose another person's private life to establish the subject's seriousness. Nor do they acquire moral superiority by finding a vivid story for a general thesis. The usefulness of the story to the writer is not the whole measure of how it treats its subjects.

Dignity does not mean exemption from consequences. Respect for a person is compatible with questions about participation and harm. Otherwise we leave only two inadequate positions: condemn the whole person or decline to examine an action. The Kantian comparison supports another question: how can an action be considered without making human value a reward for a biography we find convenient? Specific legal findings still require their own evidential work. Neither the moral seriousness of the principle nor the writer's good intentions can supply missing facts.

IX. Hatred replaces neither protection nor responsibility

In Dhammapada I.3–6, translated by F. Max Müller, ending hatred is an ethical concern. That differs from investigating a contemporary financial network. The comparison is limited: refusing to multiply hatred requires neither treating harm as invented, forgiveness on demand, trust in someone who caused harm nor dangerous contact. A religious text replaces neither protection, lawful assistance nor establishing responsibility. Its use here concerns how we respond to harm, rather than a prediction of what another person or institution will do.

Hatred can extend from particular actions to a familiar group. Someone wholly unconnected to a case then has to justify their language or origins. Resisting that extension does not mean remaining silent about a named crime. It returns discussion to actions and connections for which there is evidence. The ethical task is not to produce sufficiently gentle feelings, but to avoid adding arbitrary accusations against others to actual harm. Taking this seriously allows a strong account of wrongdoing without turning unrelated people into its representatives.

A person who has been harmed need not display an approved state of mind for others' comfort. Anger, distrust, grief and boundaries around contact may remain. These feelings do not make them participants in the system or remove their claim to support. An ethical comparison may be offered for reflection; it cannot become a condition for being judged worthy of assistance. Otherwise an attractive text becomes another demand on someone who has already suffered losses. Help should not depend on performing reconciliation for the observer.

Responsibility also needs no public spectacle. Particular participation can be examined rigorously without humiliating a whole community. Unknowns can be acknowledged honestly without indifference to harm. The two selected ethical grounds meet here: not using a person merely as a means, and not sustaining a chain of hatred. They do not become one religious doctrine or universal legal test. They offer two different questions about our own speech and actions, with distinct limits that should remain visible when they are applied.

X. Another life does not arise from one vanished contact

Suppose Anton's dependence on questionable work later weakens and another phase of life begins. This is a separate fictional stage, not an outcome established by the preceding discussion. Correspondence ending does not automatically end legal questions, material need or experienced pressure. The article promises no rapid restoration of trust, income, relationships or reputation. Needing to consider consequences does not make a person permanently identical with their hardest period. Neither a triumphant ending nor a permanent mark follows from the limited facts we have imagined.

A relative may find uncertainty difficult to bear. They may want the complete story, assurance that everything has ended and an immediate return to trust. Their need for clarity does not establish what information is available or safe to share. Support can retain limits on the supporter's involvement. It need become neither an investigation, a guarantee of innocence nor consent to every request. Each participant remains responsible for their own decisions. Caring about someone does not mean possessing control over all the conditions around them.

Anton's new life need not become a public performance proving that he is finally different. He might build lawful work, consider consequences and retain a complex relationship with the past. These are possibilities within a fiction, not a verified recovery programme. We have established no particular service, individual access, confidentiality, immunity or protection for relatives. Recognition of dignity should not turn into a promise of an institutional outcome. Ethical respect and the actual terms of assistance require different kinds of evidence.

Contemporary networks need fresh research because connections, actions and available evidence change. People need attention because they cannot be reduced to a network's name. These tasks support each other: clearer roles and limits of knowledge leave less ground for collective accusation and make questions of responsibility more precise. Anton does not need invented certainty from an author. Like people who may have been harmed, he needs a discussion in which familiar images do not conceal what remains unknown. That is a demand for accuracy as well as for care.

What this means in practice

When reading about a current network, distinguish the dates of activity, publication and actual reading. Then distinguish the subject of the statement: threat assessment, investigation or a particular conviction. This helps understand a text; it is no instruction to gather information about a group independently. If a source establishes no current role, an old photograph, citizenship or similar surname cannot supply it. A gap remains a gap even when everyone nearby wants a definite answer immediately.

In discussing the fiction, keep questions separate. What did Anton know? What actions have actually been described? What is the narrator merely assuming? Which part concerns feelings and need, and which requires factual or legal examination? An answer to one must not quietly become an answer to the rest. Shared speech does not prove membership, a useful task does not prove lawfulness, and incomplete knowledge does not automatically establish the degree of responsibility. Each conclusion needs grounds appropriate to its own subject.

Where an offer or pressure exists now, this article selects no way to refuse, contact authorities or services, negotiate, leave or examine participants. It guarantees none of these actions safe and prohibits no lawful help. Specific assessment depends on place, circumstances, role, applicable rules and actual protection conditions. Availability of a particular service, confidentiality of contact and current sanctions status of named people have not been verified here. A person seeking support need not perform certainty where none exists.

A supporter should not promise what they do not control: rapid recovery, immunity, relatives' safety or a desired institutional decision. Rather than making someone representative of such networks, conversation can concern described actions and limits of knowledge. People harmed retain their separate needs and boundaries; assistance should not depend on forgiveness. Speaking accurately cannot settle every circumstance, but it can avoid adding accusations and obligations without grounds. That is a practical limit worth preserving even when the larger situation remains unresolved.

Key quotation

“in every case as an end withal, never as means only”.

Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Second Section, translated by T. K. Abbott. Only preserves the distinction from ordinary mutual use of lawful services.

Connections between traditions

Ground	Question about the situation	Limit of the comparison
Kant, humanity as an end	Does a person become merely a useful worker or an example for somebody else's story?	An ethical ground, not a finding of guilt or a prohibition on every contract.
Dhammapada I.3–6	Does a response to harm expand into hatred of uninvolved people?	No demand to forgive, remain silent, trust or abandon protection.

Primary sources

1. NCA, National Strategic Assessment 2026: Summary, selected finding on networked forms and services. Main page read 20 October 2026; a UK threat assessment, not a universal census.
2. NCA, Operation Destabilise, 21 November 2025, main release. No complete judgments or current individual/sanctions check.
3. Eurojust, Criminals operating an illegal financial service…, 27 January 2025, main release; activity in 2024, a separate comparative case.
4. Dhammapada, F. Max Müller, I.3–6, short excerpt from I.5; no claim to have read the entire work.
5. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles…, T. K. Abbott, Second Section, selected humanity-formula passages and a short attributed quotation. International rights for full republication of the translation were not separately checked.

Tags

Contemporary criminal networks, post-Soviet region, language and belonging, responsibility, limited knowledge, dignity, support.

About the authors

Andrey Zarinsh is the author and founder of United Wisdom. He explores inner transformation, the unity of traditions, intercultural dialogue and contemporary spiritual discipline. Instagram: @andrey.zarinsh.

Maria Evilkut is a co-author of United Wisdom. Alongside research, she seeks to test these ideas in practice and observe how principles of unity and mutual understanding work in real relationships between people and cultures. Instagram: @ilkutki.