Little seems to have changed for Alexei Andrusenko, the head of a foundry in the southern Ukrainian city of Berdyansk, who is happy to have kept all his employees since Moscow took control of the city.
Andrusenko and his roughly 50 employees continue to come to work every morning in the gray building on the outskirts of the port city on the shore of the Azov Sea.
But now the factory’s products – once sold to Ukrainian and international steel companies – will likely be destined for Russia and Kremlin-allied Belarus.
Since Russia sent troops to Ukraine on February 24 and seized areas in the south of the pro-Western country, Moscow has been trying to strengthen economic ties.
“We have no other supply chain,” Andrusenko told AFP during a press trip organized by the Russian army.
He also expressed concern about dwindling supplies of their raw materials, which previously came from neighboring Mariupol, another important Ukrainian city on the shores of the Sea of Azov.
Andrusenko says they are “interested” in working with the Alchevsk Steelworks, a large factory employing over 10,000 workers that has been under the control of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Lugansk region since 2014.
Before Russia sent troops to Ukraine, these deals would never have been possible.
“The most important thing is to build the right supply chain and be able to work,” Andrusenko said.
– Port ‘100 percent ready’ –
The southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia have been largely under Russian control since the first weeks of the Moscow military campaign and are now being forcibly integrated into the Russian economy.
Berdyansk’s main economic advantage is its port, which, unlike Mariupol, the scene of a devastating siege, has remained mostly intact.
An attack attributed to Ukrainian forces reportedly sank a Russian warship in Berdyansk waters in late March, but today the port is “almost 100 percent ready” to ship grain, says Alexander Saulenko, Moscow-based Berdyansk chief.
Ukraine has accused Russia and its allies of stealing its wheat, which has contributed to global food shortages caused by grain exports blocked in Ukrainian ports.
According to Saulenko, grain will soon be shipped from the port as silos have to be cleared for the new crop.
“We have prospects for contracts with Turkey. Russia is an agrarian country, it has enough of its own grain, so it would be more profitable to trade elsewhere,” Saulenko said.
But Moscow’s most tangible impact on the local economy has been the launch of Russia’s national currency since last month.
“Now everything can be bought in both rubles and hryvnia,” Ukraine’s currency, the pro-Russian official added.
According to him, Berdyansk received about 90 million rubles ($1.7 million) from Russia, but state employees are still paid in hryvnia, and it is impossible to withdraw cash in rubles from ATMs.
– Relations with Russia are “resumed” –
Neighboring Melitopol, about 100 kilometers west of Berdyansk, which came under Russian control on March 1, also uses the Russian ruble supplied by Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“It’s a two-currency zone… The ruble is delivered to Crimea thanks to the open road. Trade relations with Russia, which were cut off after 2014, are resuming,” says the pro-Russian mayor of Melitopol, Galina Danilchenko .
“People are happy to take the ruble… I don’t see any problems,” she added, but reporters on the press trip found it difficult to speak freely with the city’s residents.
Back at the Berdyansk foundry, 41-year-old worker Sergey Grigoryev says he only hopes for his salary.
“In cash, not on my card, because you can’t withdraw from it. In hryvnia or in rubles – I don’t care.”
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