Business oligarch is almost a synonym of the term "business magnate", borrowed by the English-speaking and western media from post-Soviet parlance to describe the huge, quickly acquired wealth of some businessmen of the Post-Soviet states (mostly Russia and Ukraine) during the privatization in Russia and other post-Soviet states in the 1990s. The history of the business oligarchs in post Soviet Union states is discussed in the following articles:

• Russian oligarchs
• Ukrainian oligarchs