for example, today, finnish media claimed that ukraine is in a crisis regarding steel production because the coking coal mine near pokrovsk has been forced to shut down, with russians only 2 km away. however, the mine shut down months ago, and the impact on small and medium-sized metal industries has been negligible. what the finnish media failed to investigate is how the steel industry is structured in ukraine. like the gas and chemical industries, it is controlled by a few oligarchs who use their influence to impose high tariffs on foreign steel. additionally, their blast furnaces produce low-quality steel because they refuse to invest in improving production processes. their main customers are large state-owned metal companies, and they make significant profits. now that the specific coal mine has shut down, tariffs on imported steel have been lifted, and the price of turkish and polish steel is lower than ukrainian steel used to be. in practice, the closure of this coal mine has saved ukraines metal industry. the metal factories that exported their products were already buying imported steel because they needed high-quality materials. now they can buy it about 22% cheaper because the tariffs have been removed, while maintaining the same prices for their export products. now you understand why our oligarchs are so pro-russian and afraid of what will happen after the war. unfortunately, their takeovers of industries have occurred under existing laws, so reclaiming and nationalizing their companies is not straightforward, even though it should be done under emergency legislation during the war. the rights of ordinary citizens have been restricted, but not the rights of the oligarchs.
Finland