The Ultimate Insider’s Guide To Russian Oligarchs
For a quarter-century, Forbes has been investigating billionaire oligarchs, digging into their political connections, murky holdings and maze of offshore assets. Here’s everything you need to know about the wealthy elite who have profited under Vladimir Putin’s rule.
THE INVESTIGATION
For a quarter-century, Forbes has been investigating billionaire oligarchs, digging into their political connections, murky holdings and maze of offshore assets. Here’s everything you need to know about the wealthy elite who have profited under Vladimir Putin’s rule.
In 1997, Forbes put the first four Russians on our World’s Billionaires list. These earliest oligarchs got rich during the chaotic privatization of the 1990s, acquiring state-owned assets for pennies on the dollar. After Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000, he helped make a number of them richer and rewarded his closest cronies by turning them into billionaires. There are 83 Russians on this year’s Billionaires list; we consider 69 of them to be oligarchs. Another 19 oligarchs were billionaires before the war but have lost too much money since the invasion of Ukraine to qualify for our ranking. Twenty-five billionaires and billionaire drop-offs have been sanctioned by the U.S., the U.K. or the European Union: 11 after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the rest since the Ukraine invasion. The sanctions are taking a toll. The Russian stock market was shuttered for 17 days; it reopened on March 24, initially with severe trading limits. The economy is cratering. Yachts, jets and mansions have been frozen. Forbes estimates that these oligarchs—worth a collective $290 billion as of March 11—have lost $240 billion, nearly half of their prewar net worth, since January. On the pages ahead is our guide to all those sanctioned so far, and a few who could be next. For the full list of oligarchs, please visit forbes.com/russian-oligarchs.