Dost Ukrainians dreamed of it, Russia did it. The power of the Ukrainian oligarchs has been greatly weakened since the start of the war in February 2022. Their economic, political and media weight was considerable there, much more than in Russia for example, where the presence of a authoritarian leader like Vladimir Putin limits their influence. The new classification Forbes, which was made public on December 27, shows that the wealth of the twenty largest fortunes in Ukraine has been halved since the start of the war, to 20 billion dollars (18.7 billion euros), but it is above all their profile that has changed. The war also marks a turning point in the landscape of Ukrainian capitalism.
Many oligarchs who had occupied the top of the rankings since the country’s independence after the fall of the Soviet empire in 1991 have been replaced, for the first time, by tech entrepreneurs. The latter now occupy seven of the top twenty places. This sector is one of those which best resists the Russian invasion. Unlike the steel industry, agriculture or the mining industry, which made the fortune of the old oligarchs thanks to their proximity to political power, start-ups escape destruction more easily.
They were relocated in record time to the west of the country or abroad. This is the case of SoftServe, whose founding boss, Taras Kytsmey, just admits having had “a bit stressful” when it was necessary to move the 3,500 families of its employees to western Ukraine, and another 1,800 abroad. Companies in this sector have another major advantage: they are international. SoftServe has offices in thirteen countries, and its customers are often abroad as well. Grammarly, which made the fortune of Ukrainians Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko, numbers two and three in the ranking, even has its headquarters in San Francisco.
The irruption of tech entrepreneurs in the ranking of Forbes can also be explained, and above all, by the fall of the captains of industry, whose assets were amputated by annexations and destruction. Rinat Akhmetov, for example, saw his fortune dwindle by $9.3 billion during the war, even though he remains the richest businessman in Ukraine, with an estate valued at $4.4 billion. dollars. Losses so significant that he filed a complaint in June against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights for having confiscated his assets. Victor Pinchuk, fourth in the ranking, is one of the few who has not seen his fortune melt away, even though he owns many factories in the east of the country. Reason given by Forbes : “Two-thirds of his wealth comes from overseas real estate and cash. »
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