The war has ravaged Ukrainian industry, curbing the power of the country’s so-called oligarchs, tycoons who have long reigned over the economy and used their wealth to buy political influence.
Flak jackets are piled up at Ukraine’s Zaporizhstal steel plant, and anti-tank traps guard the entrance. Whenever air raid sirens sound and they go off every day most workers head to one of the 16 bomb shelters scattered across the sprawling grounds. But some keep working braving not only the intense heat…
The damage to Ukraine’s metal industry has crippled a lucrative sector and key employer needed to support an economy cratered by war. Efforts to restore production and get goods moving again to customers worldwide will be crucial to helping the country rebuild. That is true at a steel plant near the southwestern front line in Zaporizhzhia that is running below full capacity and a third of its 10,000 workers are idle. Workers brave not only the intense heat from blast furnaces forging steel but the threat of shelling. Prices are higher for products that the Zaporizhstal plant makes, and they're harder to get to customers that used to span the globe.