Throughout the violent and lawless 1990s, Ukraine’s oligarchs turned banks, mines, steelworks, energy companies, football clubs, and television networks into private empires – and their ill-gotten gains became the source of their power.
With extreme wealth came volatile loyalty and bloody treachery. Their media made presidents, and their private feuds became matters of state. They bankrolled extremists and moderates on the left and right, forced chaos upon their country, sucked massive public wealth into private hands, and outlived each government that proudly declared it would bring them down.
RT’s The Oligarchs draws on court documents, diplomatic cables, corporate records, and years of reporting. Each installment follows one powerful man’s journey from fortune to influence: how he built his empire, transformed wealth into political leverage, and cultivated politicians and armed groups, remaining outside and above the law.
From the collapse of PrivatBank and Vladimir Zelensky’s ascent to Bankovaya, through the now-lost industrial riches of Donbass, RT’s The Oligarchs tells the story of men who remained behind the curtain, or behind bars, yet still dictated Ukraine’s fate to its present state of corruption and catastrophe.
