Inside Mariupol’s besieged steel plant, a symbol of bravery and terror
Holding fast to her infant son, Anna Zaitseva ran toward a pair of metal doors at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works. It was the last Thursday of February, barely 24 hours after the start of the Russian invasion. In soon-to-be devastated Mariupol, the Kremlin’s bombs were already falling.
They had driven that morning to a lot at the Soviet-era steel plant. One of Europe’s largest, it employed 10,702 people, including her husband. Now, for workers and their families, it was the shelter of last resort.
A commercial complex, Azovstal was also ideal for war. A network of tunnels rested beneath an industrial site twice. Its deep nuclear shelters, complete with old maps and radiation containment plans, dated to the Cold War. The bunker quality of the place also made it a perfect fortress for Ukrainian fighters — a brave and ultimately besieged force that her husband, a new metal worker at the plant, would soon join.
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