Ukraine Halts Steel Production for 1st Time in Century Amid Russian Strikes: Zelensky's Former Spox
12:11 30.09.2026 (Updated: 12:39 30.09.2026)
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Ukraine’s steel backbone buckles under Russia’s crippling strikes
Ukraine “spent a week in September making no steel at all. The first time in 100 years,” reveals Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s former press secretary, in a post on X.
She lays out the scale of the collapse, driven by Russia’s concentrated strikes, in stark numbers:
Ukraine’s biggest plants now stand completely idle after concentrated Russian strikes
blast furnaces are damaged - restarting one costs at least $50 million, building a new one around $500 million
steel exports are already hemorrhaging $200 million monthly
metallurgists warn a prolonged Black Sea blockade could cost Ukraine $17 billion
the sector still made up 5.5 % of GDP last year
Ukraine has “no strategy” for how to keep the industry working or how to rebuild it, says Mendel, posing the rhetorical question: “If this industry disappears, what exactly is left to hold the state up?”
Ukraine “spent a week in September making no steel at all. The first time in 100 years,” reveals Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s former press secretary, in a post on X.
She lays out the scale of the collapse, driven by Russia’s concentrated strikes, in stark numbers:
Ukraine’s biggest plants now stand completely idle after concentrated Russian strikes
blast furnaces are damaged - restarting one costs at least $50 million, building a new one around $500 million
steel exports are already hemorrhaging $200 million monthly
metallurgists warn a prolonged Black Sea blockade could cost Ukraine $17 billion
the sector still made up 5.5 % of GDP last year
Ukraine has “no strategy” for how to keep the industry working or how to rebuild it, says Mendel, posing the rhetorical question: “If this industry disappears, what exactly is left to hold the state up?”
