Citing heavy damage and human casualties in the aftermath of heavy shelling, Ukraine's steelmaker Metinvest, majority controlled by Donetsk-born billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, announced on May 24 an emergency halt of operations Ukraine's largest Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant that it owns.
Earier, on May 23 Musa Magomedov, the plant’s CEO, said Avdiivka plant, located in an uncomfortable closeness to the front line on Ukraine-controlled territory, was attacked by Russian-backed fighters more than 40 times in the past days.
Violence between Ukraine’s governmental forces and Kremlin-backed militants continues, despite the February Minsk agreement on ceasefire in the east of the country. Avdiivka coke plant, located has been subject to deep shelling – over two hundred shells have landed on the territory of the enterprise since July 2014.
The latest military offensive affecting the chemical plant started on May 21 killing one employee and leaving two more people wounded. This was the heaviest shelling since the treaty between both sides was signed on Feb. 12. According to the truce agreement, Ukrainian and Russian fighters should withdraw heavy weaponry to the demarcation line, but on practice its conditions are regularly violated, according to the OSCE monitoring mission.
According to Metinvest, administrative and process buildings been damaged; the barrage and the plant’s maintenance repair and railway shops were hit; two of the four high-voltage electricity lines to the plant were disrupted. A lot of technical equipment as alocomotive and a railway crane were totally destroyed.
On Jan. 21, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine’s prime minister, said that Russian insurgents intend to destroy the country’s steel industry by destroying the Avdiivka plant.
