Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property.
Putin (left), with Mikhail Khodorkovsky (right) in December 2002. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed the following year.
Gennady Timchenko and Arkady Rotenberg in 2015
Putin (left) with Oleg Deripaska (right) in the Kremlin in March 2002
Putin (left), with Petr Fradkov (right) in the Kremlin in May 2019
Privatization in Russia describes the series of post-Soviet reforms that resulted in large-scale privatization of Russia's state-owned assets, particularly in the industrial, energy, and financial sectors. Most privatization took place in the early and mid-1990s under Boris Yeltsin, who assumed the presidency following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Russians protest the economic depression caused by the reforms with the banner saying: "Jail the redhead!", 1998.
1992 privatization voucher
Yeltsin ahead of the 1996 presidential election