Russia tagged as ‘Mafia state’ in recent wikileaks documents

Hundreds of documents have been released by the whistleblower site, which include a cable that questions whether Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is implicated in the Russian mafia, and that a powerful Ukrainian businessman told US officials he had ties to Russian organised crime.

Wikileaks was reportedly blocked from the servers of US online shopping giant Amazon on Wednesday. The website had been using Amazon servers since its Swedish-based servers came under cyber-attack twice earlier this week.

A cable from the US Embassy in Madrid talks about the "unanswered question" of the extent to which Putin is implicated in the mafia and whether he controls its actions.

Judge Grinda reportedly said that former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko thought Russian intelligence controlled organised crime in Russia. Mr Grinda reportedly stated that he believed this thesis was accurate.

In the cable, the judge is reported as saying he has information that certain political parties in Russia operate "hand in hand" with organised crime.

Wikileaks also released another cable dated December 2008, from the US Embassy in Kiev, which reveals that a Ukrainian businessman with links to the Russia state-run conglomerate Gazprom told the US ambassador he had ties to Russian organised crime.