The coal mines of the Donbas have suffered from purposeful destruction by the new “governments” in the occupied territories of Eastern Ukraine ever since the beginning of the armed conflict with Russia. Official reports about coalmining sound rather upbeat. But if one speaks to miners, one hears about long overdue salaries as well as closed down and flooded mines.
In order to guarantee the security of those who shared their stories here, we keep their identity concealed.
In 2018, Ukrainians first heard the word “ecocide” applied to a part of their country. It concerned the Yunkom mine, located just outside the occupied town of Yenikaevo (Donetsk Oblast). Back in 1979, with the goal of avoiding an outflow of methane gas, an isolated nuclear explosion was triggered in this mine. The capsule that contained the radioactive liquid after the explosion could be kept dry and safe ever since.
Now, however, the separatist authorities decided to shut down the drainage system. They say they lack the capacity to maintain the pumps that keep the mines dry. According to the journalist Denys Kazanskiy the “DNR government” can’t afford the 600 million rubles it would take to service the pumps. He sees this as a manifestation of the desire to maximally exploit the accessible resources without investing even into the maintenance of the equipment.
“You see, the ‘people’s republic’ doesn’t have 10 million dollars to spare. Everything goes into the pockets of Sergei Kurchenko, who grabbed all the enterprises taken away from Ukraine for himself and now squeezes every last bit of valuables for his firm Vneshtorgservice,” - Kazanskiy said, referring to one of the richest war profiteers.
According to the testimony of industrial workers from Yenakiieve, the mines in the city have already shut down. The new authorities ordered coalmines to prepare for flooding already in 2016. In that year, during the visit of a commission from St. Petersburg, miners tried to convince the Russian delegation that the coal mines in Donbas have some specific characteristics that distinguish them from most mines in the neighboring Russian region Rostov. The mines in Donbas cannot be drained via the surface, because most of them are too deep for that. They also consist of branching networks of hollow spaces that should never be allowed to fill up with water.
“At one moment we understood that the Russian commission didn’t care much, they had a different goal. They just wanted to bring down the industry of the Donbas. Now we are waiting for our 2017 salaries and the mine has already closed,” - states anonymous miner from Yenakiieve.
The occupying government stated that only 20% of the mines on their territory currently have working drainage systems, capable of pumping out water and lead it away through the rivers Luhan and Siverskiy Donets. All the other mines currently lack such systems.
Last May, the prosecutor’s office of Donetsk Oblast has opened a criminal investigation based on article 441 of the Ukrainian penal code that specifies the charge of ecocide. The prosecution points out that an interruption of the pumping could lead to an ecological disaster, to a radioactive or chemical contamination of ground and surface waters, which could critically damage the ecosystem of the Sea of Azov.
One can speak of a systematic approach of the occupying powers towards the coal industry. 36 mines have been closed because of partial or complete flooding. According to an OSCE report, the reasons for failing drainage systems is the patchy supply of electricity.
“As a result of the war, the coal mines were cut off from electricity repeatedly. This led to a failure of the pumping systems and eventually in some cases to complete flooding of the mines,” - mentions the report.
Similar data is shown by an infographic by Donetsk Institute of Information:
Moreover, the report highlights the complexity of the matter. The flooding of mines leads to further problems such as erosion and contamination of the water with heavy metals and radioactive materials. Researchers found that levels of mercury, radioactive strontium and cadmium have risen by 30%. In some regions close to the combat zone, the level of contamination was elevated to 17 times the norm. In 2017 a team of Israeli specialists attempted to access a number of mines threatened by flooding in order to eliminate the danger of radioactive contamination. However, the separatist authorities denied them admission.
All of this suggests that the industries of the Donbas simply may not have the time to wait for its liberation and that it is deliberately being destroyed. The exploitation of the mines without the slightest desire to invest in the region’s infrastructure has brought the region to the brink of ecological disaster.
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The Secretariat of the Coalition «Justice for Peace in Donbas»
04060, Kyiv, Ryzhska str., 73 G