Examples of environmental harm in Ukraine | return to map
Name: Ilyich Iron and Steel Works
Location: Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast
CEOBS database ID: 10154
Context
The Ilyich Iron and Steel Works is a vast metallurgical plant located in the north of the industrial port city of Mariupol. With a total footprint of more than 14 km2, Ilyich Works is vast, larger even than the neighbouring Azovstal plant. It contains the largest sinter plant in Europe, two power stations, many workshops and sites for managing legacy waste from its operations since 1899. Before the full-scale invasion, the Works was economically important, employing more than 14,000 people and producing around 20 million tonnes of specialist steel and iron plates, sheets and pipes annually.
Timeline of key incidents
As the focus of one of the three main fronts of the war, Mariupol was completely surrounded by 2nd March 2022. In the face of growing Russian ground attacks and airstrikes, Ukrainian forces fell back from residential areas to the Ilyich and Azovstal plants, with forces split between the two sites. From 9th March, Ilyich was intensively targeted until on 12th April, Ukrainian forces were either captured, surrendered, or fell back to Azovstal, where they remained until the end of the siege.1 The taking of Ilyich was widely celebrated in the pro-Russian media.2
Damage assessment
Although the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works sustained fewer weeks of prolonged bombardment and experienced a lower degree of destruction than Azovstal, remote sensing data and social media posts record many instances of damage to environmentally sensitive objects at the site, such as tailings heaps, fuel injector units, electrical substations and wastewater treatment plants. Some of these instances of damage are highlighted in the map above and the imagery below. In total, CEOBS’ analysis of social media and satellite imagery recorded 62 instances of direct damage to the site from the 8th March 2022,3 and analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar damage mapping shows that at least 46% of built structures at the site have been damaged.4
Environmental harm assessment
Air pollution and the exposure to toxic smoke was a major concern at Ilyich, with several significant fires occurring during March and April 2022. Some involved the combustion of highly toxic materials, such as large quantities of pulverised coal on the 1st April, and at a landfill/tailings heap adjacent to the equipment repair shop on the 6th and 7th April. Debris from damage to critical infrastructure very likely contains materials that pose environmental health risks, such as asbestos and heavy metal particulates, and has likely re-introduced toxic remnants from the site’s significant legacy pollution into the environment.5 This likely includes heavy metals such as lead and arsenic, alongside sulphates, nitrates, and hydrocarbons.
The damage from the fighting is severe. Footage from inside Ilyich shows huge quantities of ordnance and spent and abandoned military equipment. Whilst Russian media has claimed the site is fully de-mined, this is contested by Ukranian sources.6 Local people were reportedly recruited to remove mines without training, and detonations may have resuspended materials like asbestos.
Longer-term implications
In light of the severe damage to infrastructure caused by the fighting, and significant legacy pollution, assessment and remedial activities are important to identify and reduce current and future risks to the environment from the Works. However, effective environmental governance appears absent. Since its occupation, the ownership of the site has been dynamic, complex and opaque.7 As these circumstances are likely to continue, the environmental risks may go unaddressed, potentially resulting in more significant harm. The occupation of Mariupol means it remains difficult to independently verify the full extent of environmental harm and the offsite risks it may pose to the area.
Dis/mis-information watch
Russian propagandists have portrayed the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works positively since it was occupied, projecting a narrative of restoring the plant both materially and conceptually as a central part of Mariupol’s economy and culture. In October 2022, leaked slides from the Moscow-based Unified Institute of Spatial Planning outlined its vision for the future of Mariupol. One slide focussed on Mariupol’s metallurgical industry, and claimed that full production capacity would be reached at Ilyich by 2035. In December 2023, Russian media announced that Ilyich had resumed some of its former operations, employing 3,700 people, while also reporting on a four-stage plan for the plant’s future. CEOBS’ analysis of social media footage and satellite imagery of the plant during 2023 disproves this claim, with much of the plant still appearing derelict and in disrepair, alongside reports that much of the heavy machinery has been dismantled to be sold for scrap.8
External resources
Ukraine conflict environmental briefing: Industry | CEOBS
Azovstal Iron & Steel Works | Global Energy Monitor
Too big to fail. Will Rinat Akhmetov be able to rebuild a metallurgical empire? | Forbes.ua
Sustainability Report 2020 | MetInvest
Mariupol or Akhmetovsk? Air Pollution in Donbas Report 2020 | Arnika, Clean Air for Ukraine
“Our City Was Gone”: Russia’s Devastation of Mariupol, Ukraine | Human Rights Watch
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- Exactly what happened militarily during this period is unclear. At the time, Ukrainian sources posted that fighters from the unit of the 36th Separate Marine Infantry Brigade had escaped from the encircled Ilyich plant and connected with forces in Azovstal. However, the day after, local Ukrainian journalists reported that the defending commander at Ilyich had surrendered in exchange for his own freedom. Russian sources claimed on 12th April 2022 that more than 1,000 Ukrainian forces had surrendered. Later footage and discussion released by Ukrainian sources conceded that, on that day, hundreds of Ukrainian forces were killed, wounded or captured.
- Russian propagandists posted many interviews purporting to be with captured Ukrainian soldiers, where the interviewees claimed that Ukrainian soldiers were not given adequate equipment to fight with and that poor decisions by their commanders made them want to surrender.
- This value represents the number of times that we identified damage at a site caused by military activity, either via footage or satellite data of an airstrike or a fire, or by comparing imagery before and after damage was recorded, as recorded in our database of environmental incidents in operation since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- This was calculated by analysing the intersection between built structure polygons, obtained from a combination of OpenStreetMap and Microsoft Buildings, and damage mapping produced by Jamon Van Den Hoek (Oregon State University) and Corey Scher (City University of New York), derived from Sentinel-1 data. Visual inspection of very high resolution satellite imagery shows that this method underestimates damage.
- This is from the many iterations of the Works – it was destroyed and rebuilt multiple times during WW2 – and a history of environmental mismanagement. In the case of neighbouring Azovstal, a 2017 study identified that the nearly a billion cubic metres of wastewater produced annually contained high levels of chlorides, sulphates, phenols, petroleum products and nitrates in excess of maximum permissible concentrations, while a 2018 study found exceedances of maximum permissible values of petroleum products, total iron, ammoniacal nitrogen and nitrites. It seems likely that similar degrees of environmental pollutants could be associated with industrial activity at the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works prior to the 2022 invasion.
- https://t.me/andriyshTime/16118; https://t.me/andriyshTime/13536; https://t.me/andriyshTime/15385
- In June 2022, local journalists reported that the facility would be taken over by Yevhen Yurchenko, a Russian-aligned businessman who controlled several other metallurgical plants in the Donbas. However, an in-depth investigation in February 2023 showed that a Chechen businessman, Valid Korchagin, had acquired a 50% stake in the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works, with the remaining shares held by Yuri Murai, a Ukrainian. Korchagin has connections with allies of the leader of the Chechen republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, and has other substantial business interests in Russia.
- https://t.me/andriyshTime/12992; https://t.me/andriyshTime/2416
