Most Powerful

• #1 Alexander Lukashenko
  Belarus Party State ControlPolitical Cold War and Globalization State Power Power: 100
  Alexander Lukashenko (born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has served as president since 1994, making him one of the longest‑serving leaders in Europe. His rule has been characterized by the consolidation of executive authority, the central role of security services, and a political economy that preserves significant state control over major industries while allowing selected private activity under administrative oversight. He has consistently presented himself as a guarantor of order and social stability, arguing that strong centralized rule protects Belarus from the shocks experienced by post‑Soviet states that adopted rapid liberalization.Lukashenko rose to power in the early years of Belarusian independence, campaigning as an anti-corruption outsider and benefiting from public frustration with economic disruption and elite bargaining. Once in office, he expanded presidential powers through constitutional changes and institutional restructuring, turning the presidency into the decisive node of the state. Elections under his leadership have repeatedly been disputed by opposition movements and international observers, and the state’s response to protest has often involved mass detentions and restrictions on media and civil society.Belarus’ position between Russia and the European Union has shaped his foreign policy. Lukashenko has sought economic support and security guarantees through deep ties with Russia while also attempting, at times, to balance relations with Western states. Since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, Belarus’ role as a close ally of Russia has intensified international isolation and sanctions. Lukashenko’s case illustrates how power can be maintained through administrative control of institutions, coercive security capacity, and the management of economic dependence in a state-centered system.
• #2 Mikhail Gutseriev
  BelarusRussia Resource Extraction ControlResources 21st Century Finance and Wealth Power: 37
  Mikhail Gutseriev (born 1958) is a Russian businessman whose rise illustrates the post-Soviet pattern in which fortunes were built by acquiring, reorganizing, and defending control over hard assets in sectors that states never stop caring about. He is best known for RussNeft and for the broader Safmar orbit of oil, mining, finance, property, and industrial holdings that made him one of the more durable tycoons to emerge from the 1990s and 2000s. Unlike an entrepreneur who becomes wealthy by creating a single consumer brand, Gutseriev accumulated power through pipelines, fields, refineries, commodity flows, and the legal structures that hold them together.He belongs in resource extraction control because the core of his wealth came from hydrocarbons and related mineral projects. Oil production is not just another business line. It ties private ownership to licensing regimes, transportation networks, export politics, tax bargains, and the constant risk that a state may decide strategic assets matter more than ordinary market freedom. Gutseriev’s significance lies in having survived within that world, repeatedly rebuilding position after political pressure, asset disputes, and sanctions-era complications.His career also shows that oligarchic power in a resource state is rarely simple. It is part entrepreneurship, part state accommodation, part elite conflict, and part family strategy. Gutseriev moved through all of those layers. He built banks and industrial companies, entered parliament, endured confrontation with authorities, left and returned, and diversified into sectors meant to reduce dependence on one asset class without ever fully leaving oil behind. The result is a profile that helps explain how post-Soviet wealth was assembled, protected, and repackaged over time.Gutseriev is therefore not merely a billionaire with oil holdings. He is a case study in how extraction-based fortunes evolve when private capital is allowed to exist but never entirely free itself from politics. His legacy is tied as much to endurance and adaptation as to the initial act of accumulation.