Zaporizhstal, a Soviet-era steel plant in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, has managed so far to keep running in defiance of staff shortages, blocked exports, power blackouts and the threat of Russian missile attacks.
It shut down temporarily last year for the first time since World War II, and director Roman Slobodianiuk knows its future, and that of Ukraine's once-mighty steel industry more broadly, is in doubt.
Until producers can get steel to markets via the Black Sea, where Russia continues to pose a threat to shipping, there is little prospect of recovery for a sector second only to agriculture in its importance to Ukraine's economy.