Anatomy of an 'Industrial Ghetto' & Media Mimicry (31.10.2026): Why Inside Zaporizhstal (00191230: VEB.RF 50% + Metinvest 49%) Ukraine Is Blamed Under Russian Missiles, While Zaporizhstal's TV5 Team (13630346 — Onopriienko, Mamaiev, Bohdanovych, Romanska) Moved into the National Media Regulator (00063928), Co-Founded Wife Y. O'Connor's Charity (44860257) with Regulated Cable Provider DVS-SAT (30601051), and Rebranded as 'Cultural Podcasters'

Anatomy of an "Industrial Ghetto" and Media Mimicry: Why Inside Zaporizhstal (00191230) Ukraine Is Blamed Even Under Russian Missile Strikes, While Former Media Executives of the "VEB.RF / Metinvest / Opposition Bloc" Pool (TV5 13630346) Now Sit in the National Media Regulator (00063928), Co-Found Charities with Regulated Cable Providers (44860257 / 30601051), and Rebrand as "Cultural Podcasters"

> Verification Date: 2026-10-31

> Category: INDUSTRIAL FEUDALISM, STATE REGISTRY FORENSICS & REGULATORY CONFLICT OF INTEREST

> Primary Sources: Unified State Register of Ukraine (edr_live.sqlite: EDRPOU 00191230, 13630346, 39099768, 40225113, 00063928, 44860257, 41680853, 30601051), Verkhovna Rada Resolution No. 2730-VIII of 30.05.2019, NSDC Decision / Presidential Decree of 12.05.2023 on confiscating the Russian state corporation VEB.RF stake in PJSC Zaporizhstal, National Council Decision No. 384 of 16.02.2024, NACP (NAZK) Asset Declarations Register.

PART I. THE "ZAPORIZHSTAL PHENOMENON" (EDRPOU 00191230): WHY INSIDE A SOVIET INDUSTRIAL ENCLAVE UKRAINE IS BLAMED EVEN UNDER RUSSIAN BALLISTIC STRIKES

To an outside observer, the mindset inside post-Soviet heavy-industrial enclaves of Southern and Eastern Ukraine looks like a clinical paradox: Russian forces pound Zaporizhzhia daily with ballistic missiles, S-300/S-400s, and guided glide bombs (KABs), hitting the industrial site of PJSC Zaporizhstal (EDRPOU 00191230) directly — yet up to 90% of the entrenched shop-floor bubble continues to blame Ukraine for everything, flees west to Lviv, Zakarpattia, or the EU (never to Russia) when mobilization or shelling intensifies, and still repeats pro-Russian narratives.

This socio-psychological mutant did not emerge spontaneously; it was methodically engineered over 30 years inside the closed feudal ecosystem of the plant.

1. Psychological Mechanics of "Stockholm Syndrome Under Bombardment"

• Defensive Cognitive Inversion (Blaming the Victim):
• When workers spend decades inside a corporate-media and shop-boss bubble preaching that *"Russia is our natural market, cheap gas supplier, and guarantor of order, while Maidan and sovereign Ukraine threaten our jobs,"* a Russian missile striking their street or workshop triggers acute cognitive dissonance.
• Rather than admitting they spent their lives cheering for their own murderers, the mind triggers defensive inversion: "Russia wouldn't bomb us if Ukraine hadn't resisted / if the AFU weren't in the city / if air defense didn't intercept / if Kyiv had surrendered immediately." In this inverted reality, the war continues not because Russia invaded, but because Ukraine refuses to capitulate and let them return to their quiet factory shift.
• The Paradox of "Fleeing West While Cheering for Moscow":
• When fear of strikes or losing factory mobilization exemptions (bron) peaks, they flee — not to Voronezh or Chelyabinsk (knowing full well the reality of Russian filtration camps at Sheremetyevo and Russian provincial poverty), but to Western Ukraine or EU welfare states, while still blaming Ukraine for disrupting their paternalistic factory comfort zone.

2. Four Structural Pillars That Built the Zaporizhstal Incubator

• 50% Owned by Kremlin State Bank VEB.RF (Chaired by V. Putin) from 2010 to May 2023:
• In 2010, ~50% of PJSC Zaporizhstal (00191230) (the Midland Group stake of Eduard Shifrin and Alex Shnaider) was bought out for ~$850 million financed by Russian state development corporation Vnesheconombank (VEB.RF), whose supervisory board was chaired ex officio by then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (via offshore and Ukrainian shell companies Global Steel Investments Limited, LLC Kyiv Securities Group, LLC Midland Capital Management).
• The other ~47–49.99% (Industrialbank group stake) was acquired in 2011–2012 by Metinvest (Rinat Akhmetov and Vadym Novynskyi, chief patron of the Moscow Patriarchate church in Ukraine).
• Only on May 12, 2023 did Ukraine's NSDC impose sanctions on the 13 individuals and 28 legal entities holding the Russian VEB.RF stake to initiate state confiscation. For over 12 years of war, half of Zaporizhzhia's flagship plant belonged de facto to the Russian state.
• 1930s Open-Hearth (Marten) Technological Tether to Cheap Russian Gas:
• Zaporizhstal remained one of the last major steelworks in Europe operating obsolete, high-emission open-hearth furnaces (martenivski pechi), making EU environmental standards and market gas prices look like an existential threat to its engineering caste.
• The Plant as Official Headquarters of the "Opposition Bloc" (2012–2020):
• Under CEO Rostyslav Shurma (2012–2019, son of former SDPU(o) and Opposition Bloc MP Ihor Shurma), Zaporizhstal became the regional headquarters of the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc (chaired in the oblast by Shurma from April 2015). Zaporizhstal Chief Engineer Volodymyr Buriak became Mayor of Zaporizhzhia (2015–2021), shop heads filled city and oblast council seats (alongside future Russian occupation governor Yevhen Balytskyi in the 2020 oblast council list), while across the street Vyacheslav Bohuslayev at JSC Motor Sich (arrested by the SBU on 22.10.2022 for high treason) kept shipping aircraft engines for Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters even as Russian missiles hit his own workshops, and solar plants co-owned by Rostyslav Shurma's brother Oleh Shurma (LLC KD Energy 2, LLC Renewable Energy Zaporizhzhia) collected ~320M UAH in Ukrainian state "green tariff" payments while standing under Russian occupation (2022–2023, *Bihus.Info* / NABU investigation).

PART II. WHERE THE "ENGINEERS OF FACTORY SOULS" WENT: FROM ZAPORIZHSTAL'S TV5 (13630346) TO THE NATIONAL MEDIA REGULATOR (00063928) AND REGULATED CABLE CHARITIES (44860257)

The daily propaganda megaphone servicing the Zaporizhstal / Opposition Bloc vertical was Zaporizhzhia broadcaster TV5 (LLC ZNTRK TV-5, EDRPOU 13630346), 100% owned by PJSC Zaporizhstal (00191230). Cross-referencing Ukraine's Unified State Register (edr_live.sqlite) and NACP declarations reveals how the entire core team of TV5 migrated into Ukraine's National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting (EDRPOU 00063928) while scrubbing their 2016–2021 digital archives:

• NGO "FORMAT OF UNITY" (EDRPOU 39099768, 09.12.2013 / 17.02.2014) & TV5 (13630346):
• Co-founded in Kyiv during Euromaidan by Maksym Valentynovych Onopriienko (born 12.10.1980, Tartu) and director Serhii Anatoliiovych Zatula.
• In August 2014 Onopriienko became CEO of Zaporizhstal's TV5 (13630346), bringing in Serhii Volodymyrovych Mamaiev as Editor-in-Chief and Andrii Rostyslavovych Bohdanovych (husband of Daryna / Daria Valeriivna Romanska) from Kirovohrad Regional TV as flagship weekly host.
• The 6-Day Synchronization in January 2016 (@Romanska.D & EDRPOU 40225113) and the 2016–2018 Rhetoric ("Mouse Spetsnaz" & "Shariy's Multi-Step Moves"):
• 14.01.2016: Daryna Romanska creates YouTube channel @Romanska.D (UCmRNxrYo9mWATIETKjYGAgQ), and 20.01.2016 (6 days later) Onopriienko's NGO partner Serhii Zatula (director) and TV5 Editor-in-Chief Serhii Mamaiev (co-founder) register LLC "EUROPEAN TELESYSTEMS" (EDRPOU 40225113) in Kyiv.
• Throughout 2016–2018, in their YouTube releases and media reviews (on @Romanska.D and joint broadcasts with S. Mamaiev and A. Bohdanovych), they systematically mocked Ukrainian wartime news (ridiculing reports on Ukrainian security services and the war with the "mouse spetsnaz" meme), openly admired the "multi-step moves of Shariy" (pro-Kremlin propagandist Anatoliy Shariy, later sentenced in Ukraine to 15 years in prison for high treason under Art. 111 CCU), and categorically asserted on camera that "Ukrainian journalism does not exist in principle".
• Scrubbing the Archive (2020–2021) and Entering the National Media Regulator (00063928) & USAID/IRI Grant Projects:
• On 30.05.2019, TV5 CEO Maksym Onopriienko is appointed Member of the National Council on TV and Radio Broadcasting (00063928) by 233 MP votes (BPP — 86, People's Front — 61, Opposition Bloc — 32, Radical Party — 19). Despite his 5-year term expiring in May 2024, he remains in office as of October 2026.
• In 2020–2021, prior to entering the state regulator, the entire 2016–2021 video archive praising "Shariy's multi-step moves" and mocking "mouse spetsnaz" and "non-existent Ukrainian journalism" was quietly wiped from public access (leaving a documented ~25,000 hidden-view delta in the YouTube API on @Romanska.D).
• In July 2020, Onopriienko appoints Daryna Romanska as his Advisor in the National Council, and in December 2021 her husband Andrii Bohdanovych files a candidate declaration for Head of the Media and Public Institutions Relations Department of the same National Council (00063928). Together with Mamaiev, they become trainers and faces of the National Council's Media Change Ukraine and USAID/IRI-funded Pro Zminy grant programs — lecturing Ukrainian journalists (whose existence they had denied in principle in 2016–2018) on professional standards. Both Bohdanovych and Romanska remain in Ukraine (Kropyvnytskyi / Boryspil, Kyiv Oblast, where their active FOPs 2010350000000379254 and 2010350000000586575 are registered).
• Direct Conflict of Interest: Charity BO BF "MEDIA CHANGE UKRAINE" (EDRPOU 44860257, 02.06.2022) Co-Founded by Onopriienko's Wife and a Regulated Mukachevo Cable Provider (30601051):
• Six weeks before TV5 surrendered its broadcast licenses to the National Council (21.07.2022), a private charity bearing the exact name of Onopriienko's official National Council initiative — BO "CHARITABLE FOUNDATION 'MEDIA CHANGE UKRAINE'" (EDRPOU 44860257) — was registered on 02.06.2022 in Mukachevo, Zakarpattia Oblast.
• Its three founders in the state registry are:
• Yevheniia Ottivna O'Connor — official wife of National Council member Maksym Onopriienko (per his NACP declarations; FOP 2010920170000000156);
• Robert Viacheslavovych Shutko — director and co-owner of Mukachevo telecom firm LLC "DVS-KOM" (EDRPOU 41680853, 100 Ilony Zrini St., Mukachevo) and son/partner of Viacheslav Laslovych Shutko, 100% owner of Mukachevo cable TV provider LLC "DVS-SAT" (EDRPOU 30601051);
• Valerii Hryhorovych Borodii — Mukachevo attorney (director).
• The Smoking Gun: LLC "DVS-SAT" (30601051) is a cable television and audiovisual service provider directly regulated and registered by the National Council on TV and Radio Broadcasting (00063928), where Yevheniia O'Connor's husband Maksym Onopriienko sits and votes — including National Council Decision No. 384 of 16.02.2024 registering LLC "DVS-SAT" as an audiovisual service provider! Meanwhile, Bohdanovych and Romanska registered two new FOPs in Boryspil (2010350000000379254 on 19.08.2023 and 2010350000000586575 on 26.06.2024) and rebranded into sterile literary podcasters ("Sheva, Lesia and Franko").