None of us will ever forget 24 February 2022. The longest day. The day that became a year long. A year that you look at like it is one day.

Like a hundred-metre race, you run without stopping, looking only ahead.

But it's so important to pause to recover your breath and strength. To look back and around so as not to lose track of yourself and those around you. To know what has been done and how much has been accomplished in order to continue moving forward towards a single goal.

This is how I stand now, momentarily, to talk about Metinvest’s one year-like-one-day (careful, here comes a longread):

--- FIERCE SPRING ---

As early as the morning of February 24, all the enterprises were operating normally. Metinvest set up an anti-crisis centre, and, in the evening, the Mariupol plants began to implement emergency hot mothballing. Within a few days, the plants were shut down and rendered safe for the city. Later the bomb shelters, which were prepared for a couple of weeks, will become shelters for several months for employees, residents and the defenders of Mariupol.

After the city was blockaded, the Group prepared humanitarian buses, but the occupiers never allowed the buses bringing food and rescuing people to reach Mariupol. Still, the drivers from Metinvest’s Pokrovske Coal made several runs to Volnovakha and Vuhledar and helped evacuate people and deliver humanitarian supplies to the cities. Whenever possible, we took people from Melitopol and other cities to areas under Ukrainian control, primarily to Zaporizhzhia. In total, the Group participated in and helped the evacuation of 21,000 people.

In early March, Zaporizhstal, Zaporizhia Coke and Zaporizhia Refractories were temporarily hot mothballed to protect other cities and their residents. The mothballing of Avdiivka Coke also began. It was only in April that the enterprises in Zaporizhzhia began to resume operations. Avdiivka Coke is still enduring enemy attacks and around 200 employees continue to work in Avdiivka. They store and maintain equipment and carry out critical repairs. The safest possible environment has been created for them.

Enterprises in safer regions prepared shelter centres. The Group launched a humanitarian front, purchasing food and basic necessities. In total, Metinvest set up 6,000 places for people in its shelters. And the Group also helped to equip city shelters. Many volunteers from Metinvest's youth organisation joined humanitarian initiatives and supported the military.

Metinvest's enterprises contributed to supporting the hospitals and other social facilities in their cities. The Group began purchasing emergency medicines based on requests from doctors.

To train employees to act in emergency situations, Metinvest launched first aid courses. Bomb shelters were set up at all facilities and food was purchased.

Metinvest, together with other SCM businesses, developed a logistics network to ensure that people and cities receive food and other essential items.

The Group's key areas of focus were quickly established: assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, support for injured people and employees, and a commitment to keeping the enterprises running.

There is no chaos, there is a clear understanding of what to do. Not everything was done as fast as we wanted. But now I realise that we did it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

--- STEEL IS A SYMBOL OF PERSEVERANCE ---

The most important and urgent thing. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, Metinvest was placed on a war footing. As part of Rinat Akhmetov's Steel Front military initiative, the Group began purchasing protective equipment for the country's defenders and started producing armour steel. The plants also launched the production of anti-tank hedgehogs, and Metinvest-SMC donated metal to make protective bastions to deter enemy vehicles.

At the beginning of the invasion, we faced the acute issue of providing the defenders with protective equipment. Bulletproof vests were very hard to get. So, Metinvest started to produce its own armour steel. To date, the Group and its partners have produced and delivered 150,000 reliable bulletproof vests.

Metinvest steel does not just protect the hearts of Ukrainian soldiers. Metinvest engineers have developed special mobile shelters to strengthen trenches. In July, the Group sent the first of these “life capsules” to the front lines. And, in February 2023, we were proud to announce that 123 steel dugouts are already protecting our defenders. Metinvest has also started to develop similar shelters for civilians.

Metinvest's steel keeps Ukraine's defenders warm and helps them cook in the field. Together with its partners, the Group has produced 5,000 stoves with various modifications.

With each passing month of the war, Metinvest's assistance has grown and diversified. In April 2022, we sent the first drones to the frontline. And in February 2023, there were already 1,200 of them. A kind of “drone show” for the enemy.

We also sent thermal imagers, tourniquets, and vehicles to the front. The latter included ambulances for evacuating wounded soldiers and civilians. Over the year of the war, 1.1 million litres of fuel were delivered.

The development of tactical medicine in Ukraine is critical. As part of its cooperation with the PULSE charity foundation, Metinvest allocated UAH 6.2 million to train members of the military (and more than 10,000 have been trained).

A separate area is to provide Metinvest employees who have gone to defend the country with everything they need. More than 7,000 Group employees are now defending Ukraine in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Group has provided them not just with helmets and bulletproof vests, but also with warm clothes.

The Mariupol plants are the cradle of Ukrainian steelmaking industry. However, after the war started, they acquired a new symbolism. Azovstal transformed into a fortress that served as the last line of defense for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Mariupol. It was this heroism that inspired the creation of Symbol of Perseverance bracelets in partnership with the UNITED24 fundraising platform. The total production run of bracelets made of Azovstal steel amounted to 100,000 pieces. Their sale raised more than UAH 40 million for the Army of Drones and UAH 94 million for the world's first fleet of maritime drones.

And the story of Mariupol's defenders continues. Rinat Akhmetov launched the Heart of Azovstal project to support these heroes and their families.

Despite the damage to the plants, Mariupol steel continues to live on. In autumn 2022, the Ivan Mazepa corvette was launched. As the core of the future fleet of the Ukrainian Navy, the first Ada-type corvette is made of steel from Ilyich Steel and Azovstal.

--- AID FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT ---

In early March 2022, Metinvest Group, in coordination with the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, launched the Saving Lives humanitarian project. The first shipment of aid was delivered from Poland to Ukraine almost immediately. One year after launching the initiative, the number of people who have received aid is steadily approaching half a million. Support is coming from nearly 200 donor companies around the world. It is being received by the residents of almost 70 communities in Ukraine.

Saving Lives not only supplies food packages and essentials, but also takes care of hospitals and provides casualties with psychological rehabilitation, in particular, through the Unbreakable Mum project. A separate and equally important activity is to provide prosthetics to members of the military and civilians. Some 173 people in total are participating in these programmes.

The whole world watched the fate of the defenders of Azovstal and the civilians hiding in the fortress. In early May, the Mariupol residents who were rescued from Azovstal arrived in Zaporizhzhia. There they received all necessary aid at the Metinvest Rehabilitation and Reintegration Centre. The same centre also functioned in Kamianske. In addition to temporary accommodation for the evacuated employees, medical and psychological aid, people were offered employment. As a result, more than 6,200 people received new jobs, including 1,600 people from Mariupol and Avdiivka. 

The Metinvest Together! programme was launched to provide psychological support to the employees and their families. During the first year of its existence, its experts have provided more than 2,500 group and individual consultations.

It was colleagues who often helped those who had left their homes to recover from the experience they went through. The Group also launched the Housing for Our Employees programme to help with rental housing. And for social adaptation, the We Care Together volunteer group was launched in partnership with the Metinvest Green Centre.

Unfortunately, the war did not cancel the coronavirus, as well as the need for oxygen therapy for patients. Since the beginning of 2022, Metinvest enterprises have delivered 1,600 cubic metres of oxygen to hospitals.

hildren should not know what war is. But when it is impossible to avoid, adults have to minimise the impact of what is happening. Metinvest has supported Denys Sylantiev's Physical Rehabilitation through Swimming project for displaced children and has helped more than 230 children to get healthier.

And the first day of school was not cancelled) nor was our support for first graders: more than 3,000 future schoolchildren received certificates for their school supplies. And on New Year's Eve, more than 32,000 children of Metinvest employees received presents with sweets.

And corporate events were not just cancelled. Instead of them, we supported a number of social projects and the victims of the hostilities.

Life must go on. Despite everything, we managed to retain the faculty of Metinvest Polytechnic, the first non-state mining and metallurgical university, and it opened online. In September, 442 undergraduate and graduate students began their studies.

--- TEST OF ENDURANCE ---

It was not enough for the enemy to simply destroy Mariupol. They also decided to loot it. On the day the war began, there was steel in the port of Mariupol. This steel was supposed to be exported to buyers in different countries. The illegal actions to seize and restart the work of the Mariupol port after the invasion of the city clearly demonstrated that the steel products were taken out (read: stolen) by the invaders. This amounts to more than 234,000 tonnes of steel products.

Some 16 companies of Metinvest Group have filed claims with the European Court of Human Rights against Russia for damage caused by it to the Group’s property and possessions in Mariupol and other Ukrainian territories since 24 February 2022.

Because of economic and logistical factors, the Group’s enterprises have not been able to operate at full capacity.

Moreover, since July 1, the Group has suspended production at Ingulets and Southern GOKs and reduced the operation to one blast furnace at Kamet Steel in Kamianske because of logistics issues, rising production costs and falling product prices. Since the middle of July, mining operations at Northern GOK have also been suspended. Out of all the Ukrainian-based iron and enrichment works of the Group, only Central GOK continues to operate, albeit at reduced capacity.

The wide-scale attacks on energy infrastructure that began in October posed additional challenges to Ukrainian industry. After these strikes, production capacity was significantly limited. In November-December 2022 and in the first days of January 2023, Metinvest experienced problems with electricity. However, with the opening of electricity imports, we began to purchase power from the European Union. In this way, we have been able to increase the workload of Kamet Steel.

In addition to the destruction of production chains, the Group has faced a problem with logistics. The Black Sea ports became inaccessible to Ukraine for the export of iron ore, steel and coal. Because of the blockade, Metinvest is forced to work at around 30-50% of pre-war capacity at its plants. We were able to partially reorganise the supply of raw materials to other European countries through European ports and railways. However, this has increased the cost of exports by several times.

As of January 2023, Zaporizhstal is operating two out of four blast furnaces and Kamet Steel is operating two out of three blast furnaces. Currently, Metinvest's iron ore enrichment works in Kryvyi Rih are resuming their work after a forced suspension of production. A portion of the products is shipped from the GOKs to the Group’s Ukrainian metallurgical plants and Eastern European markets. Pokrovske Coal Group is operating at around 80% of pre-war capacity. The construction of a new coal mining unit is ongoing. This year, it is also planned to put four more longwalls into operation, in addition to the four ones already operating.

Despite everything, in 2022, Metinvest enterprises developed 24 new types of products. The Group remains the economic and industrial pillar of Ukraine. According to the Group’s results, 2.918 million tonnes of steel were produced in 2022.

To sum up 2022, Metinvest paid UAH 20.5 billion in taxes and fees to budgets of all levels in Ukraine over the past year, taking into account associated companies and joint ventures.

That's all. I took a break, told you everything, and now I have to run further.

Towards victory.

Everything will be Ukraine!