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A Ukrainian steelworks owned by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov accused Russia of taking its metal from Mariupol for resale back home and asked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to sanction the “pirates.”
A boat loaded with metal from the Ilyich Steelworks headed to the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don at the end of May, Metinvest Holding LLC said in a statement. About 145,000 tons of steel products were left in Mariupol, a port city occupied by Russia’s military. The company, Ukraine’s biggest steelmaker, didn’t say how much of its product was on that boat.
Metinvest, which also has its Azovstal plant in the city, said the River Sea freight company transported the metal. River Sea director Gennady Arustamov declined to comment.
The alleged thefts would fit a pattern of Russia targeting commodity hubs that provided Ukraine with vital export revenues. A report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe found evidence of looting by Russian troops, in addition to war crimes against civilians.
More than $600 million worth of grain was stolen from occupied regions of Ukraine and sent to Russia, according to the Kyiv School of Economics.
Moscow denies targeting civilian installations and infrastructure.
The steelworks assumed a symbolic significance after its Azovstal plant became the last holdout of Ukrainian troops in Mariupol, which is devastated by almost three months of Russian assault. Russia said its forces took control of the plant last month.
Metinvest’s two Mariupol iron-and-steel plants halted production at the beginning of the war.
Akhmetov is Ukraine’s richest man and owns System Capital Management, the country’s largest industrial conglomerate with investments in metallurgy, mining and energy. He has a net worth of $6.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
(By Áine Quinn, with assistance from Volodymyr Verbyany and Daryna Krasnolutska)
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