I think they are very powerful, due to the membership they have and the skills and everything. Well not all groups are like that, but there are definetely a lot of them. They play a major role nowday in USA's criminal society.

So, what I know from my own information what people from Latvia who have lived in USA has told. It is that in USA when Russian groups started to base themselves in the early 90's, a lot of black and mexican gangs had to back up out of their controled areas. Russian groups are known to be violent and professional in what they do. For example most of the Russian criminals have served in the Soviet and later Russian Federation army. Most of them are sportsmen, majorly specializing in fighting sports, such as boxing, wrestling, etc.

But by activities, look at Brighton Beach for example. Yaponchik led the group there really organized. The place is clean from black/mexican gangs. Medicare fraud is also a big common thing, various scams as well. When Russians do it, they do it big. They don't tend on going to extort the local grocery shop owner for five hundred dollars a month, that's like nothing. They better create some big scheme and gain millions out of it. That's what the smart one's do, but there are as well the stupid groups, which get into robberies and such shit as any other small time group.

What I've heard also, that if someone like tries to harm you at a club in New York, you just need to start swearing at them in Russian and they'll back off :D:D

But yeah, generally in my opinion they are powerful, a big key member in the criminal world of USA.