Author, Vitaly Shevchenko
Place of work, BBC Monitoring
Published 2 minutes ago
Reading time: 5 min
Just like thousands of other residents of Zaporozhye, Denis Maksishko has been working for many years at the Zaporizhstal metallurgical plant located in this city. For several generations, this enterprise was the largest and most important employer in the city.
This is a translation of material published on the BBC News website. The original in English can be read here.
“Zaporizhstal is not just a big enterprise, it is the heart of the city,” he says.
But now, after several Russian missile strikes, that heart no longer beats. Four attacks - two in August and two in September - shut down the huge plant, which employs 8,500 people, indefinitely.
“All equipment was almost completely destroyed. There are no windows left, and there are holes in the roofs. The blast furnaces are practically destroyed,” explains Maksishko.
According to Zaporizhstal operating director Alexander Mironenko, Russia fired a total of 17 missiles at the plant. Eight employees were killed and 31 people were injured.
"We are now clearing away the rubble and trying to plan recovery," Mironenko told the BBC.
But so far there is no certainty that Zaporizhstal will ever be able to earn money again.
Campaign to Destroy the Industry
Russia's sustained campaign of strikes against Ukrainian metallurgical plants began in August. By now, missiles have hit all the factories, some several times.
This is a key sector of the Ukrainian economy and represents a profitable target for Russia.
Before the full-scale invasion began in 2022, the metals and mining industries accounted for about 10% of Ukrainian GDP and about a third of the country's exports. More than 500 thousand people worked here; approximately 8% of all jobs in Ukraine were somehow connected with this industry.
Mironenko says the industry has ground to a halt due to recent Russian attacks, and its contribution to the country's GDP is "probably approaching zero."
Until recently, his company was the largest steel and cast iron producer in Ukraine, but now all its metallurgical plants are not operating.
“It is obvious that they are trying to stop the Ukrainian economy and make sure that Ukraine cannot receive money from exports abroad, cannot pay taxes and salaries, so that its cities cannot live and people do not have jobs,” says Mironenko. “So far, their efforts have been very effective.”
What could this mean for the economy and the country?
Damage to the metallurgical industry could have devastating consequences for Ukraine's economy and society.
Until the armed confrontation with Russia began in 2014, which led to the loss of some important industrial areas in the east of the country, Ukraine had 12 metallurgical plants.
By 2018, there were only nine left, and in 2025, after three years of full-scale war, that number had dropped to six. Among the lost enterprises were Azovstal and the Mariupol Iron and Steel Works named after Ilyich in Mariupol.
Among the cities suffering from the latest Russian shelling is President Vladimir Zelensky's hometown of Krivoy Rog.
On September 25, the largest metallurgical enterprise in Ukraine, Arcelor Mittal Krivoy Rog (formerly Krivorozhstal), announced that it could not operate after constant shocks that lasted five weeks. At the same time, the plant paid tribute to the bravery of its employees, five of whom died.
The head of the Krivoy Rog Defense Council, Alexander Vilkul, made an urgent appeal to the residents of the city, in which he announced a “very serious blow” that would affect not only several thousand plant employees.
The situation, he admitted, is very serious.
“These are taxes for the community budget. And these are not just abstract numbers. We all understand that this is money for the salaries of public sector employees, for the maintenance of city infrastructure, repairs of pipes and boiler houses, this is money for kindergartens, the social sphere and much more,” he said.
According to Stanislav Zinchenko, head of the Kyiv consulting company GMK Center, taxes from metallurgical companies provided from 30% to 70% of local budget revenues in the cities where these enterprises are located.
"In other words, the physical survival of cities depends on these companies," he told the BBC. — This is a catastrophic problem for the Ukrainian economy. Before the war, the metallurgical and mining industries were key. It has always been the largest investor in the economy, averaging two to three billion dollars a year.”
"Deadly Lottery"
If metallurgical plants remain closed, hundreds of thousands of people could lose their jobs, leading to waves of migration that will be felt far beyond Ukraine's borders, Zinchenko warns. “There is a humanitarian disaster looming,” he says.
The end of the metallurgical industry will also have extremely dire consequences for Ukraine's defense capabilities and its recovery.
Steel is a critical component for military equipment, as well as for making shelters and rebuilding the many buildings damaged by Russia.
This is precisely what Moscow is trying to justify its attacks on metallurgical enterprises. She claims that factories in Zaporozhye and Krivoy Rog produced weapons.
“We tried to start Zaporizhstal again. We started the furnace and worked for 10 hours until another air strike occurred,” Alexander Vodoviz from the Metinvest company said during a conference in Kyiv.
But Zaporizhstal employee Denis Maksishko does not lose optimism.
“It’s the same thing the military does in the trenches. Ordinary people fight like soldiers to keep the plant alive,” he concludes.
