"Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo" and "Zaporizhstal" pooled their equipment and resources to deal with aftermath of attack. PHOTOS
Company News
The latest enemy strike on Zaporizhzhia has posed a new challenge for the city’s energy and industrial infrastructure. A high-voltage power line supplying the substation that powers ‘Zaporizhstal’ was damaged.
In addition, a munition destroyed a section of railway track used by the company, according to Censor.NET.
Details
PJSC "Zaporizhstal" is today one of the main pillars of Ukraine’s economic and defence resilience amid the challenging conditions of war. As a frontline giant, the plant retains its status as a critically important enterprise thanks to several factors.
It is the cornerstone of Ukraine’s metallurgical industry, accounting for almost half of the country’s total steel production. Despite enemy shelling, the threat of power cuts and logistical pressures, the plant continues to produce pig iron and steel without interruption. In 2025, the plant produced 3.6 million tonnes of pig iron and 3.2 million tonnes of steel. Without its operations, the domestic mining and metallurgical sector would be on the brink of collapse.
The plant tops the list of the largest employers in the Zaporizhzhia region. Around 8,200 employees currently work there on a permanent basis. The company not only preserves jobs for local residents but also actively employs internally displaced persons and systematically reintegrates veterans returning from the front line.
At a time when the state budget is in critical need of domestic resources, Zaporizhstal is one of the largest taxpayers. In 2025 alone, the plant paid almost 2.7 billion hryvnias to budgets at all levels, directly funding the state’s defence and social obligations.
The company’s products (hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel) remain a key component of Ukrainian exports, ensuring a stable inflow of foreign currency into the country. Even now, the plant is developing new types of steel for the engineering industry and the future reconstruction of Ukraine’s destroyed infrastructure.
Damage to the energy and railway infrastructure created a complex situation that required swift yet unconventional solutions. To carry out the restoration work as quickly as possible, teams from "Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo" and "Zaporizhstal" joined forces.
The main problem was the location of the damaged section of the high-voltage power line. The site of the incident was difficult to access for large specialist machinery, without which it would have been challenging to carry out the necessary work. Therefore, the power engineers faced an additional task — first to organise full access to the damaged power facility.
Before the specialists from ‘Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo’ could begin direct work on the high-voltage power line, it was necessary to repair the damaged railway track and clear the road to allow specialised vehicles to pass.
Given the scale of the task and the need to act as swiftly as possible, a decision was taken to involve resources from two companies simultaneously. Joint teams from Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo and Zaporizhstal worked to ensure access to the affected section as quickly as possible and to create the necessary conditions for restoring the power infrastructure.
The work required a large amount of specialised equipment, as well as dozens of tonnes of building materials. Coordination between the power company staff and the industrial plant’s workers enabled more efficient use of available resources and accelerated the clean-up following the attack.
Andrii Stasevsky, head of "Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo", emphasised that Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia’s energy infrastructure are not merely aimed at causing problems with the electricity supply. One of the enemy’s objectives is to try to paralyse local industry and exert psychological pressure on the population.
However, the joint efforts of "Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo" and "Zaporizhstal" have once again demonstrated the ability of Zaporizhzhia’s enterprises to respond swiftly to complex challenges and pool their resources to achieve a common goal.
Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo JSC is a strategically important state-owned enterprise that acts as the electricity distribution system operator within the city of Zaporizhzhia and the part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast under its control.
The company serves over 780,000 customers — private households, hospitals, schools, water utilities and major industrial giants such as Zaporizhstal. It is through Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo’s networks and substations that electricity reaches end users. Without the efficient distribution of electricity, city life and business operations would grind to a halt.
Due to constant shelling of civilian and critical infrastructure, the power grid in the Zaporizhzhia region suffers daily damage. Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo’s teams operate as ‘heroes without weapons’: as soon as the military and the State Emergency Service give the go-ahead, repair crews head out to the sites of ‘strikes’ at any time of day or night. In just one week, the power company restores electricity to over 80–90 thousand customers following large-scale power cuts and rocket and drone attacks.
The company is responsible for the technical regulation of the grids. During periods of peak demand or system-wide shortages in Ukraine, it is ‘Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo’ that coordinates and implements schedules for planned or emergency power cuts to prevent a large-scale blackout in the region.
The reliable power supply provided by the company is essential for Zaporizhzhia’s metallurgical and chemical enterprises to continue smelting steel, paying billions in taxes and maintaining the country’s defence capabilities, concluded Andriy Stasevskyi, head of Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo.
