Security guarantees will be key to Ukraine healing its shattered economy if Donald Trump moves to negotiate an end to the war with Russia when he returns to the White House, according to the chief executive of one of the country’s largest companies.
Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the chief executive of the steel company Metinvest, said the company’s economy could grow like Germany’s economic miracle after the devastation of the second world war if the right policies are in place but added that there was a high degree of uncertainty over Trump’s plans.
Trump has promised to end the Ukraine war in “one day”, but has given little indication of how he plans to do so once he takes power again in January. His pick as US envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, has proposed withdrawing US weaponry from Ukraine if it does not enter peace talks.
Some people and businesses in Ukraine are awaiting Trump’s inauguration with trepidation, as Russia is on the front foot militarily.
“President Trump is quite a decisive person, and his pledge to end all wars, and end the Ukraine war, is a very welcome thing,” Ryzhenkov said. “The problem is we still don’t know what the plan is.
“What’s more important to me is the security guarantees that we will receive at the end of the war, or a ceasefire.”
Investors are interested in Ukraine’s significant assets that could help its economy to recover and attract inward investment, Ryzhenkov said, including deposits of lithium and uranium, and a history of industrial production.
Metinvest has already suffered significant losses during the war. Its Azovstal and Illich steelworks in Mariupol were completely destroyed during a drawn-out siege, and it also lost a coke mine in Avdiivka. The company is owned by the billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who has strongly supported the Ukrainian government in the war despite Volodymyr Zelenskyy claiming before the war that the oligarch could be targeted to join a potential coup. Akhmetov strongly denied the allegation, saying it was “an absolute lie”.
Ryzhenkov said the company, which is still generating cash despite the war and a global steel glut, remains Ukraine’s largest corporate taxpayer and one of the largest employers. It has 43,000 workers in Ukraine and another 9,000 in the armed forces, and also says it is the largest private sector supporter of the Ukrainian government and defence forces in financial terms.
“Logistics is still the main challenge” for Metinvest’s remaining Ukrainian operations, Ryzhenkov said. Active seaports in Ukraine’s south and rail links allow it to export.
The company is running at three-quarters capacity at a steelworks in Zaporizhzhia on the Dnipro River, and at 65% for Kametsteel to the west.
However, the company is facing a significant risk of further losses to operations, after Russia advanced to about 10km from a coalmine in Pokrovsk, a city in eastern Ukraine.
A third of Metinvest’s cashflow comes from the Pokrovsk mine, which produces coking coal for the company’s steelworks as well as those of its rival ArcelorMittal in Kryvyi Rih.
The day before Ryzhenkov spoke to the Guardian, a vital air vent had been bombed, although apparently not deliberately. Worker buses have also been targeted on occasion by Russian forces mistaking them for military troop movements.
On the global market, Ryzhenkov said Metinvest “cannot be immune to what is happening right now” but added that the industry was “probably at the lowest point of the cycle” before demand and prices gradually recover.
• This article was amended on 3 December 2024. An earlier version incorrectly referred to the “Unisteel” plant, when Kametsteel was intended.
