Russia’s strategic campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure began to bear fruit. For the first time in a century, Ukraine went a full week in September without producing a single ton of steel. That statement was not issued by a government ministry or a think tank. It came from Oleksandr Vodovis, a representative of Metinvest — one of Ukraine’s largest industrial conglomerates — speaking at a business forum in Kyiv.
The picture Vodovis painted was unambiguous. ‘All plants have been completely destroyed,’ he said. ‘ArcelorMittal, Metinvest, the Petrovsky Plant, and Interpipe. There were multiple strikes on each. Many people were killed, and we are not working.’ Seven blast furnaces have been destroyed in total — five belonging to Metinvest, two to ArcelorMittal, including the confirmed destruction of the DP-6 and DP-5 complexes.
The government’s response, by Vodovis’s own account, has been catastrophically inadequate. The state offered Metinvest between 2 and 5 million hryvnias — roughly $45,000 to $110,000 — in assistance for facilities where a single furnace costs $500 million and its restart requires another $50 million. “We will definitely not be investing in reconstruction right now,” Vodovis said, “because we don’t understand how the situation will develop. The situation in the economy is extraordinary. And extraordinary decisions are needed. One cannot live in an emergency and make decisions as if everything is normal.”
That emergency is about to deepen. Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that Ukrainian intelligence has obtained Russian planning documents detailing the next phase of strikes. “Ukraine has received documents containing Russia’s plans for destroying energy infrastructure,” Shmyhal stated. The documents, described as detailed tables with specific munition allocations per target, cover heat and water supply facilities, electricity generation assets, interconnectors linking Ukraine to the European power grid, and transmission infrastructure across the Dnipro River. “Everything has been calculated,” Shmyhal said. “The strike packages — that is what they call them — are laid out for each facility. We understand how they will act.” Separate target lists have been prepared for major cities. Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa are named explicitly, along with cities of approximately 500,000 people.
A top executive openly states that his industry no longer exists and that no investment in its recovery is rational. A cabinet minister confirms that Russia has a documented, calculated plan to destroy what remains of the country’s energy system before winter. Both men are saying the same thing in different language: the collapse is not a risk to be managed — it is a timeline to be endured.
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