Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, thousands of people have been killed and millions

have fled.

The U.S. and some allies have levied sanctions on Russia and also put pressure on its

oligarchs, the roughly 100 Russians who help set the country's economic and political

agendas.

They are the individuals who amass enormous wealth in a short amount of time when Russia

privatized.

That's Union Ong.

She is a political scientist who studies corruption.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, there was a sudden breakdown of

political order.

So everything in post-Soviet Russia was up for grabs.

For grabs, meaning businesses and industries that had been state-owned were now privatized.

The privatization program on paper was intended to give all Russians an opportunity to buy

a stake in the post-Soviet economy.

In reality, what happened was that it was usurped by this very, very small group of people

for private gain.

Especially lucrative were businesses in the energy sector.

In the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia, the oligarchs essentially ran the

country.

Yeltsin stepped down at the end of 1999.

I want to ask you for forgiveness, Yeltsin said, in a televised address, because many of

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