According to Davidenko, the start of a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 and shelling of Mariupol caught the company at a time of active construction of a university campus in the city.
“On February 16, we were on a visit to Mariupol, several floors of the university had already been erected. But with the beginning of the invasion, the question arose: will we be able to save the university? The biggest challenge was to quickly switch from the planned full-time format to online learning and maintain contact with potential students who remained in the front-line regions or moved to other cities of Ukraine. We had to “change our shoes in the air” to make learning possible at all in the new remote format,” he said.
According to him, Metinvest Polytechnic has already graduated the first masters and conducted the fourth intake of bachelors. The university is introducing dual training, combining online lectures with practice at the enterprises of the group of companies.
Davydenko emphasized that the sustainability of Metinvest’s business became a signal to the international audience: the company continued to operate even after the destruction of key assets and retained all obligations to clients.
“In 2022–2023, Metinvest faced a serious logistics challenge: the Black Sea was closed, and European customers were expecting products from Ukraine. The company understood that in such a situation, not only the delivery time, but also the method of communication becomes decisive,” he emphasized.
The company’s actions, according to Davidenko, formed a “steel reputation” and demonstrated that the brand can be relied upon even in force majeure conditions.
“With this example, we want to show that Ukraine is part of Europe. At the front, it defends European values and at the same time is an economic partner, not a competitor,” Davidenko concluded.
Context
The company is included in the rating of the largest investors in Ukraine: annually the company invests UAH 12 billion in investment projects.
In October, Metinvest entered the top ten largest private taxpayers in Ukraine; since the beginning of the war, the group of companies has transferred more than UAH 70 billion to the budgets of all levels in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the company has provided Ukraine with 9.7 billion UAH of assistance, of which 5.2 billion UAH to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces as part of the Steel Front initiative.
