Steel boss at heart of Mariupol defence says economy is key to war effort
The Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol has become one of the symbols of the brutality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Soldiers held out for weeks in the warren of tunnels, warehouses and cooling blast furnaces as they and hundreds of civilians sheltering with them were encircled and eventually forced to surrender.
The site produced 40% of Ukraine’s entire steel output and was the key asset of the country’s biggest pre-war employer, Metinvest. Now its owner has an important role to play in the parallel battle to sustain the economy via its other plants outside occupied territory, according to its chief executive, Yuriy Ryzhenkov.
“The war effort is not only what you supply to the army, but also how [the] economy functions,” the Metinvest boss says, speaking via video link from a company office in Lviv in the west of Ukraine. “So the better the economy functions, the better the country can fight a war. In our view, in my personal view, the people who are now at our steel mills are just as important to the victory of Ukraine as the soldiers on the frontline.”
Ryzhenkov was in the capital, Kyiv, when he first heard Russian weaponry signalling the start of the invasion, and was stunned that Vladimir Putin’s regime would launch open warfare. The company has since adjusted to operating in a warzone, but at least 153 Metinvest employees have died in the fighting.
Beyond keeping money flowing through the economy, the metals and mining group is playing a direct role in the war effort, delivering steel for 1,500 bulletproof vests a week to Ukraine’s armed forces, and importing military equipment such as drones, night-vision headsets and helmets.
It is a remarkable shift for a company whose main shareholder – Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat
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