Moscow enriches Ramzan Kadyrov, who is friendly to the Kremlin, allowing him to plunder the Illich Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol. The Illich Steel Works have come under the control of individuals close to Kadyrov, including Ruslan Geremeyev.
Ruslan and the deputy head of the Chechen Ministry of Construction and Housing, Vakht Geremeyev, are relatives of Senator Suleiman Geremeyev, an associate of Kadyrov. Half of the shares in Illich Iron & Steel Works, which now controls the plant, were acquired by his son Valid.
It is reported that the looting of the plant is in full swing. Trucks carrying rolled products frequently leave the factory, heading towards Russia. The occupiers have dismantled and sent to Russia a production line worth $220 million, which was installed shortly before the large-scale war began. As early as September 2022, a Moscow trading company exported steel products worth $380,000 from the plant. Other companies from Russia then regularly sold coal and other products that remained on site. In January 2023, a batch of metal products worth $50,000 was exported to Uzbekistan.
After some time, Valid Korchagin’s shares were transferred to another person, also connected to Ramzan Kadyrov—Akhmat’s Moscow fight club leader Alash Dadashev. However, the Geremeyevs continue to manage the plant. “There were many corpses here, everything was mined,” Vakht Geremeyev recounted in an interview with a pro-Russian Mariupol media outlet earlier this year, while walking in military uniform across the factory grounds.
According to Geremeyev, he fell in love with the plant and “almost became a metallurgist,” intending to restore its operations by 2026, while also wanting to protect it from looting. Alash Dadashev, through another of his Mariupol companies “Technical Materials,” which he co-owns with a local resident and former deputy head of the oxygen shop at Azovstal, Stanislav Komarovsky, is sending industrial gases from the plant to Russia.
Allied countries need to reinforce sanctions pressure and freeze the accounts of individuals close to Putin, who may finance various shell companies, funds, or organizations to continue aggression in Ukraine.
