RUSSIA is overruling fearful big business owners and looking to shut down dozens of gigantic factories to avert accidents and the threat of terror attacks during this year’s World Cup.

The halt in production highlights the financial sacrifice Russia is preparing to make when it hosts soccer’s showpiece event for the first time from June 14.

But it also betrays concerns that something will go awry and a readiness to use heavy-handed tactics that could see thousands of workers going unpaid for at least five weeks.

Security analysts warn that shuttering chemical plants and other high-risk enterprises is simply dangerous.

The move is “a typical top-down order to make things look pretty that has nothing to do with actual safety,” said veteran security analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision appears to stem from a fear of industrial accidents and the threat of plants being attacked or blown up.

“The threats of an accident and terror are closely related,” Moscow’s FBK Grant Thornton consultancy director Igor Nikolayev said.

A Putin decree from May 2017 says special security measures should cover areas around the 11 cities hosting matches and meet “a higher level of protection than those defined by the Russian Government’s approved anti-terror requirements.”

A separate government directive issued a month later applied the guidelines to everything from nuclear and chemical facilities to companies transporting hazardous cargo by land or sea.

A strict interpretation of the directive could theoretically close Moscow’s only oil refinery and a deep-sea port in Saint Petersburg that is licensed to ship radioactive isotopes.

The Kommersant business daily reported that hundreds of plants could possibly close — some of them 400 kilometers away from the nearest World Cup stadium.(SD-Agencies)