The richest man in Ukraine has pledged to help rebuild the besieged city of Mariupol, a place close to his heart where he owns two vast steel mills that, he says, will once again compete globally.
Rinat Akhmetov has seen his business empire torn apart by eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, but he remains defiant, certain that what he calls “our brave soldiers” will defend the city on the Sea of Azov, reduced to a wasteland after seven weeks of bombing.
However, for now, its company Metinvest, the largest steel company in Ukraine, has announced that it cannot fulfill its supply contracts and, while its financial and industrial group SCM Group is meeting its debt obligations, its private energy producer DTEK “has optimized payment of their debts” in an agreement with creditors.
“Mariupol is a global tragedy and a world example of heroism. For me, Mariupol has been and will always be a Ukrainian city,” Akhmetov said in written answers to Reuters questions.
“I think our brave soldiers will defend the city, although I understand how difficult and hard it is for them,” he said, adding that he was in daily contact with Metinvest managers who run the Azovstal and Illich steel plants in Mariupol.
On Friday, Metinvest reported that it would never operate under Russian occupation and that the siege of Mariupol had disabled more than a third of Ukraine's metallurgical production capacity.
Akhmetov praised the “passion and professionalism” of Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky during the war, which seems to soften relations after last year the Ukrainian leader said that conspirators hoping to overthrow his government had tried to involve the businessman.
Akhmetov then called the accusation an “absolute lie”.
“And war is certainly not the time to disagree... We will rebuild all of Ukraine,” he said, adding that he had returned to the country on 23 February and had been there ever since.
A Marshall Plan for Ukraine
Akhmetov did not say exactly where he was, but he had been in Mariupol on February 16, the day when some Western intelligence services expected the invasion to begin. “I talked to people on the streets, I met with the workers...”, he said.
“My ambition is to return to a Ukrainian Mariupol and implement our (newly produced) plans so that the steel produced in Mariupol can compete in world markets as before.”
Russia invaded on February 24, when President Vladimir Putin announced a “special operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” the country. Kiev and its Western allies reject it as a false pretext for an unprovoked attack.
Akhmetov, long the richest man in Ukraine, has seen his business empire shrink since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea and two regions of eastern Ukraine - Donetsk and Luhansk - proclaimed independence from Kiev.
According to Forbes magazine, Akhmetov's net worth in 2013 reached 15.4 billion dollars. It currently stands at $3.9 billion.
“For us, war broke out in 2014. We lost all our assets both in Crimea and in the temporarily occupied territory of Donbas. We lost our businesses, but that made us tougher and stronger,” he said.
“I am confident that, as the largest private company in the country, SCM will play a key role in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine,” he said, citing officials claiming that war damage has reached $1 trillion.
“We will definitely need an unprecedented international reconstruction program, a Marshall Plan for Ukraine,” he said, referring to the US aid project that helped rebuild Western Europe after World War II.
“I am confident that we will all rebuild a free, European, democratic and successful Ukraine after our victory in this war.”
(With information from Reuters)
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