Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth during the era of Russian privatization in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials (mostly in Russia and Ukraine) as a means to acquire state property. Historian Edward L. Keenan has drawn a comparison between the current Russian phenomenon of oligarchs and the system of powerful boyars which emerged in late-Medieval Muscovy.[1]
The first modern Russian oligarchs emerged as business-sector entrepreneurs under Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary 1985–1991) during his period of market liberalization.[2] These younger generation entrepreneurs were able to build their initial wealth because Gorbachev's reforms effected a period "when co-existence of regulated and quasi-market prices created huge opportunities for arbitrage."[3] The term "oligarch" derives from the Ancient Greek oligarkhia meaning "the rule of the few".
Since 2017, several Russian oligarchs and their companies have been hit by US sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for their support of "the Russian government's malign activity around the globe".
