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The Ukrainian oligarchs are a group of business oligarchs that quickly appeared on the economic and political scene of Ukraine after its independence in 1991, just as happened in neighboring post-Soviet state Russia. In 2008, the combined wealth of Ukraine's 50 richest oligarchs was equal to 85% of Ukraine's GDP. In November 2013 this number was 45% (of GDP). By 2015, due to the Ukrainian crisis, the total net worth of the five richest and most influential Ukrainians (Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Pinchuk, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Henadiy Boholyubov and Yuriy Kosiuk) had dropped from $21.6 billion in 2014 to $11.85 billion in June 2015. (In 2014 Ukrainian GDP fell by 7%; in 2015 it shrunk 12%.)
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Oligarchs are usually defined as businessmen having direct influence on both politics and economy. During the 1990s, the oligarchs emerged as well-connected entrepreneurs who started from nearly nothing and got rich through participation in the market via connections to the corrupt, but democratically elected government of Ukraine during the state's transition to a market-based economy. Later numerous Ukrainian businesspeople have "taken over control" of political parties (examples of this are Party of Greens of Ukraine, Labour Ukraine and Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united)) or started new ones to gain seats and influence in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament).
The rise of the oligarchs has been connected to the processes of privatization of state-owned assets. These processes usually involved the distribution of property titles of such enterprises, land, and real estate, on equal base to the whole population of the country, through instruments such as privatization vouchers, certificates, and coupons. Given the different preferences of people in relation to risk-aversity, property titles were easily re-sold. Businessmen who could provide an initial investment capital to collect such property titles could thus easily arrive to the property of whole former public holdings.
The oligarchs' influence on the Ukrainian Government is uncertain. In 2011 some analysts and Ukrainian politicians believed that some Ukrainian businesses tycoons, with "lucrative relations" with Russia, were deliberately hindering Ukraine's European Union integration.
Notable Ukrainian oligarchs
In January 2001 only two people of this list were seen as being an oligarch by the general public (Lazarenko and Tymoshenko, topping a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology survey in January 2001).