You're reading: The New Yorker: Watching the Ukrainian oligarchs

Late last month, two videos appeared on YouTube that seemed to enact, in real time, the struggle between the old and new orders in Ukraine. The star of both videos was the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, whose fortune comes from banking, aviation, media, and oil and gas. His power is not limited to the business world; in March 2014, he was appointed the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where he used his wealth and influence to quell separatism, keep the violence in the neighboring regions of Donetsk and Luhansk from spreading westward, and protect his own financial interests. He accomplished this, in part, by providing substantial funding and assistance to some of the volunteer battalions that have been compensating for the inadequacies of the Ukrainian Army.

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