How did the Ukrainian oligarchy survive the institutional disruption of the Euromaidan revolt
of 2013 2014? How did it manage to continue its extractive political and economic practices
amid deep changes in Ukraine's society and polity? To answer these questions this book
analyzes the evolution of the Ukrainian super-rich in 2006-2017 tracing the process of
conversion of wealth into political influence through vote-buying in the Verkhovna Rada (the
Ukrainian parliament) and of the transformation of political influence back into wealth via
elite rent-extraction schemes within the Ukrainian gas sector. A key argument is that
continuity in informal practices between the Yanukovych and Poroshenko presidencies and of the
networks that conduct them meant a prolongation of the dominant political economy regime. The
study conceptualizes the processes of the recreation of Ukrainian oligarchy as a currency flow
or circuit of wealth and power. It adds to the literature on the dynamics of informally
dominated post-communist political economy regimes a detailed integrated and internally
comparative case study of Ukraine.This book is ambitious in its scope ... a thoroughgoing
empirical study of one of the defining features of politics in Ukraine.-Dr Sarah Whitmore
Senior Lecturer in Politics Oxford Brookes UniversityA successful attempt to combine usage of
theories of oligarchy and national prosperity.-Dr Rasmus Nilsson Lecturer in Russian Politics
SSEES University College London
