Russian oligarchs

Russian oligarchs are businesspeople who amassed great wealth and political influence during Russia’s transition from Soviet rule to a market economy, especially in the 1990s.

Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The formal end of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the emergence of fifteen independent states. The Soviet collapse opened the transition in which Russia’s new fortunes formed.
Boris Berezovsky: A Russian businessman and political figure who built a media and financial empire in the 1990s. His influence over television and politics became emblematic of oligarchic power under Yeltsin.
Russian presidential election of 1996: The election in which Boris Yeltsin defeated Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov to win a second presidential term. Business magnates helped finance Yeltsin’s campaign and mobilize media support.
Vladimir Putin: The Russian politician who served as president or prime minister from 1999 onward. His rise brought a new settlement in which major business figures faced stronger Kremlin constraints.
Shock therapy: A rapid shift from a state-controlled economy to market prices, privatization, and tighter monetary policy. Rapid market reforms reshaped ownership and economic power in post-Soviet Russia.
Roman Abramovich: A Russian businessman whose wealth grew through oil and aluminum interests after the Soviet Union. His acquisition of Sibneft illustrates the rapid rise of post-Soviet magnates.
Russian media in the 1990s: The television, newspaper, and radio landscape that developed amid political and economic upheaval in Russia during the 1990s. Private owners used influential outlets to support political allies and contest state power.
Yukos: A Russian oil company dismantled after tax claims and the 2003 arrest of its chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Its collapse demonstrated the risks of challenging the state’s authority over strategic assets.
Loans-for-shares scheme: A 1995 Russian privatization program that transferred stakes in major companies to banks in return for government loans. The scheme gave a small circle of financiers control over valuable natural-resource companies.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky: A Russian businessman who led the oil company Yukos before his arrest and imprisonment in 2003. His conflict with the Kremlin became a defining case of the state’s changing relationship with oligarchs.

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