Dthey prefer not to hear that they are oligarchs. “Businessmen”, “Biznesmeni” in Ukrainian, are the men who influence politics, business and the media. They are part of the informal centers of power that no president could stand up to for a long time. Rather, the oligarchs controlled the state leaders. But with the war, the political system in Ukraine is also changing, opposition groups in parliament are closing ranks, and the largest television stations are broadcasting a uniform program in the so-called telemarathon.
“The oligarchs are now significantly weakened,” says Petro Oleshchuk of Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko University. “The media have come together under the control of the authorities, the economic basis for the oligarchs’ influence has been partially destroyed.” The political scientist is referring above all to the coal and steel magnate Rinat Akhmetov, who, among other things, is now bombed and occupied by Russian troops Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol. Akhmetov is still the richest Ukrainian. However, the Ukrainian subsidiary of American business magazine Forbes estimated in July that its wealth has shrunk by almost two-thirds since the start of the Russian all-out attack on February 24, from $13.7 billion to $4.9 billion.
