The kremlin Has Ruined russia’s Ferrous Metallurgy

For decades, the metallurgy industry served as a mirror of the russian economy – a sector where everything converged: raw material extraction, energy, machine building, construction, and the well-being of hundreds of thousands of families. Now that mirror has shattered. The war against Ukraine and international sanctions have disrupted familiar supply chains, cut off foreign markets, and eroded production margin – and the industry that once was the driving force of russia’s industrial progress is now simply trying not to fade away completely.

Problems piled up from several sides at once. Demand for steel in construction and machine building plummeted after the start of the full-scale invasion. Energy resources, raw materials, and logistics became more expensive – production costs crept upward, and the margin shrank. Foreign markets, which traditionally absorbed significant volumes of russian products, either sharply reduced their purchases or definitively shifted to other suppliers. Capacity utilization plummeted, while a number of enterprises had already gone bankrupt.

Technological isolation became a separate problem. A modern metallurgical plant is not just blast furnaces and rolling mills, but complex scientific and technological complexes that require constant updates and upgrades. Due to sanctions and the exodus of foreign partners, the industry lost access to technologies it had prided itself on for years and is being set back decades. Modernization has been put on hold: banks are reluctant to provide financing amid instability, and companies are hoarding liquidity, fearing new shocks.

Meanwhile, the kremlin is redirecting resources toward military needs, effectively abandoning metallurgy to its fate. An industry that had always fed russia and driven its technological progress has become a hostage to putin’s political decisions. Without budgetary support and investment, this complex system is beginning to fall apart.

Human losses are no less severe. When plants start “dropping the ballast” and closing workshops, the first to suffer are the workers – skilled specialists who had been investing their talent and experience in production for years.

If metallurgy is the backbone supporting construction, machine building, and the country’s industrial image, then what is happening today is not merely temporary difficulties for individual companies; it is a signal that russia’s economic backbone is on the verge of collapse. The rf will be left with rusting factories, having forever lost its status as an industrial power.