Many Ukrainians dreamed of it, Russia has done so. The power of the oligarchs of Ukraine has greatly weakened since the start of the war in February 2022. Their economic, political or even media weight was considerable, much more than in Russia for example, where the presence of a Authoritarian leader like Vladimir Putin limits their influence. The new Forbes classification, which was made public on December 27, shows that the heritage of the twenty largest fortunes in Ukraine has been divided by two since the start of the war, at 20 billion dollars (18.7 billion of 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 that have occupied the top of the classification since the country’s independence, after the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991, were replaced, for the first time, by tech entrepreneurs. The latter now occupy seven of the first twenty places. This sector is one of those who best resist the Russian invasion. Unlike the steel industry, agriculture or even mining industry, which have made the fortune of old oligarchs thanks to their proximity to political power, start-ups are more easily escaped from destruction.
They were relocated in record time to the west of the country or abroad. This is the case of Sofserve, whose founding boss, Taras Kytsmey, just recognizes having had “a little stress” when it was necessary to move the 3,500 families of its employees to the west of Ukraine, and 1,800 others abroad. Companies in this sector have another size advantage: they are international. Sofserve has offices in thirteen countries, and its customers are also often abroad. Grammarly, who made the fortune of the Ukrainians Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko, numbers two and three of the ranking, even has its headquarters in San Francisco.
The emergence of tech entrepreneurs in the Forbes classification is also explained, and above all, by the fall of the captains of industry, whose heritage is amputated by annexations and destruction. Rinat Akhmetov, for example, saw his fortune melt $ 9.3 billion during the war, even if he remains the richest businessman in Ukraine, with a heritage valued at 4.4 billion Dollars. So important losses 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 only ones who did not see his fortune melt, while he nevertheless holds many factories in the east of the country. Reason advanced by Forbes: “Two -thirds of its wealth come from real estate abroad and liquidity.”
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