The Russian Oligarchy and its Long Way Out

Anton Krutikov
7 min readMar 10, 2023
Photo by the author

After my last article, Stalinization as a New Russian Reality, when I was (un)expectedly attacked by furious conspiracy thinkers (they still claim NATO provoked Putin’s invasion of Ukraine), I realized how important it is to continue the discussion with the “other side” including speaking about “good and bad Russians”. In the comment section below you will definitely find the both types. But today I would like to talk about the Russian oligarchy.

The emergence and prosperity

The phenomenon of the Russian oligarchy appeared due to Russia’s infamous privatization in the 1990s and early 2000s, after the fall of the Soviet system. Since then, the oligarchs are mostly represented by wealthy businessmen who control a huge portion of the natural resource industries. Much of the national wealth of the country, which was created by generations of Soviet citizens, ended up in the hands of a small group of individuals, often illegally.

An alliance between the top bureaucracy and the oligarchy emerged in the last years of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency and finally triumphed under Vladimir Putin. When people from the security services joined this alliance in the 2000s, they found a real «gold mine» in it. This is how the system of today’s Russian Federation emerged economically and politically.

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Anton Krutikov
Anton Krutikov

Written by Anton Krutikov

Top writer in history and politics. Historian and political analyst based in London, UK.

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