Kyiv: Ukraine’s wealthiest man, Rinat Akhmetov owner of two vast steelworks has pledged to rebuild the besieged Southern port city of Mariupol. Eight years of fighting, has shattered Akhmetovs eight year old buissness empire.
“For us, the war broke out in 2014. We lost all of our assets both in Crimea and in the temporarily occupied territory of Donbas. We lost our businesses, but it made us tougher and stronger,” he said. “We will definitely need an unprecedented international reconstruction programme, a Marshall Plan for Ukraine,” he said, in reference to the U.S. aid project that helped rebuild Western Europe after World War Two.
“Mariupol is a global tragedy and a global example of heroism. For me, Mariupol has been and will always be a Ukrainian city,” Akhmetov said in written answers to questions from media.
According to Forbes magazine, Akhmetov’s net worth in 2013 reached $15.4 billion. It currently stands at $3.9 billion.
On Friday, Metinvest said it would never operate under Russian occupation and that the Mariupol siege had disabled more than a third of Ukraine’s metallurgy production capacity.