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Updated July 22nd, 2022 at 15:19 IST

Ukrainian steel company's CEO accuses Russia of looting UK-bound steel

Russia is robbing steel destined for the United Kingdom and the European Union, according to the CEO of Ukraine's largest steel business.

Reported by: Aparna Shandilya
Russia
Image: AP | Image:self
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Russia is robbing steel destined for the United Kingdom and the European Union, according to the CEO of Ukraine's largest steel business. According to Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov, raw and completed steel worth $600 million left behind in the Azovstal mill and adjoining port in the brutalised city of Mariupol was intended for UK customers but is now being transferred to Russia and partly sold to Asia and Africa, BBC reported.

"What they're doing is basically looting. They're stealing not only our products, but also some of those products already belong to the European customers. So basically, they're not only stealing from us, they're stealing from the Europeans as well. At some point in time, the Russians will be facing not only the international courts, but also the criminal courts. And we will be going after them with anything we have," Ryzhenkov told BBC.

Azovstal steelworks and its sister factory, which became the last bastion of Ukrainian combatants and civilians during the war for Mariupol, accounted for 40% of all steel output in Ukraine. Customers across Europe, including those in the United Kingdom, had already acquired tens of thousands of tonnes of steel. Metinvest is headquartered in Mariupol, a commerce and manufacturing hub that succumbed to Russia in May after nearly three months of continuous assault.

Ryzhenkov stated that 300 personnel and 200 employees' family were killed in the attack on the Azovstal facility, according to BBC. The media agency further reported citing Ryzhenkov that the company is documenting as much of the theft as possible and is planning to take legal action in the future.

Russia-Ukraine war

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military claimed that despite a barrage of artillery and rocket fire across the front lines, Russian forces in Donetsk have not advanced. The fighting appears to be most severe in eastern Ukraine, just to the west of Lysychansk, which fell to the Russians earlier this month, and south of Bakhmut, where repeated Russian attempts to break Ukrainian defences have yielded only a few kilometres of ground.

The Ukrainian army is still defending a 30-kilometre (20-mile) stretch of territory near Bakhmut. On July 22, the Russians bombed a dozen settlements south and east of Bakhmut and launched an attack near Striapivka, east of the city, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. More artillery fire was fired north of the neighbouring city of Sloviansk, according to the General Staff.

 

Image: AP

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Published July 22nd, 2022 at 15:19 IST

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