Ukraine ranks 8th in the world in terms of proven coal reserves, estimated at around 34 billion tonnes, or 3.5% of the world's reserves. Most of the coal produced in Ukraine has been used for decades at thermal power plants to generate electricity. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, coal production dropped significantly but stabilised after 1996 to provide resources for the energy and heavy industry sectors. The coal sector was able to survive thanks to generous state subsidies provided to thousands of workers in the east and the west of the country.

However, the Russian invasion and the war that started in 2014 in the coal-rich Donbas region forced a farewell to coal. Much of the Ukrainian coal mines are located in the Donbas, the country’s eastren region that grew in importance during the industrial revolution. Russia has been occupying part of this coal basin controlling dozens of mines in both Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Russian separatist forces took over both state and private mines. Many coal mines were also destroyed as a result of hostilities.

Ukrainian government kept control over 33 state-owned coal mines, only four of which were still profitable. Once a major global producer of anthracite, a variety of coal that has the highest heating value of all ranks of coal, the country found itself with a shortage of such coal due to the loss of control of the mines in the east of the country. In order to satisfy the domestic demand coal imports had to grow, including from Russia, the US, Australia and South Africa during different years. The critical situation has forced Ukraine to the reconstruction of its energy mix. In 2021 during the international climate negotiations in Glasgow the government announced it would phase out coal in electricity generation by 2035.

In February 2022 Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine attacking all the regions of the country and attempting to advance deeper in the Donbas. After just four months of the escalated hostilities, ten coal mines were flooded due to damages to critical infrastructure. This caused a further drop in coal production.

Despite the ongoing war, coal mining is carried out, even close to the front line. In 2021, we travelled to Luhansk region, where we visited a coal mine in Zolote and we travelled across Donetsk region, where we visited several mines in Vuhledar, Toretsk and Pivdennodonbaska, which is one of the largest coal reserves in Ukraine. Some of the mines we saw are now flooded and all the operations are stopped.

Toretsk, in Eastern Ukraine, is a mining town located a few kilometres from Horlivka town, which is occupied by separatists.

The city, founded in 1806, was initially called Shcherbynovka. In the 1930s, as the mine was opened, both the town and the mine were named Dzerzhinsk, in honor of the founder of the Communist secret police. The city was renamed as Torestk in 2016 There are only two coal mines left in this town. One of them is the Centralna mine, which is the oldest and deepest mine in the region. Previously, there were 7 mines in this city.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Toretsk saw new civilian deaths and destruction. The town started having critical disruptions with water supply. Many citizens left their homes, the number of coal miners fell by more than a half.

When Outriders visited this mine 1,350 people worked at the mine. One hundred forty-eight of them were handlers, 95 people worked in the tunnels, and 180 hewer miners were from the sewage treatment plan. The rest were the support.

One hundred forty-eight of them were handlers, 95 people worked in the tunnels, and 180 hewer miners were from the sewage treatment plan. The rest were the support.

“Back in the days, when I was young, I came to dance parties on a motorcycle with black eyes because of this coal dust; I had authority among many. Now people wash their eyes because they're ashamed. Not always do miners get a good salary. The salary must be no less than $ 1,000,” says Volodymyr Gert, director of human resources and Social Affairs at Central mine in Toretsk.

“The most terrible thing about the effects of the war is that most of the miners left this city for various reasons because they were intimidated,” Mr Gert explains. “We lost 800 people of different occupations and specializations”, he continues.

“Gone are the young, needed, good handlers, the ones from the tunnel. Moreover, we had people from Gorlovka and Yenakievo, 18 km away”, he says. Mr Gert explains that they came here to work. “But recently, literally, we settled with the last employees in the last month. Because they lived here in shifts. “Of course, they have families and parents, and with all due respect to the establishment, they said goodbye to me, said goodbye, and left,” he adds.

Oleksandr, one of the miners working at Toretsk’s mine, explains that his first thought “is to smoke because the whole shift is without cigarettes, without anything.” He says he has been working here since 2012. “As a handyman, and in general, I was an ordinary miner for ten years. I worked in the trailers, on the tracks, fixing things up. I know everyone here; I've had some success in this job. The bosses respect me. Sometimes we argue, but we consider it as a part of a job,” he says.

“If we close our mines: ours and the Dzierzhynski mine, the city will simply die,” Oleksandr continues. “Because there are no factories here that can provide 4,000 jobs. People just aren't there,” he says.

“We work independent of shelling and all that”,  Oleksandr  says. “We go to the mines and risk our lives and continue to extract coal for metallurgy, electrical and thermal stations,” he adds. He believes that it is not true that mines are not repayable. "Every mine and coal deposit is profitable, just put money into it.  No one wants to do that right now,” he adds.

Andrij is a mining veteran: he has worked in the industry for 11 years, having done various jobs underground. He lives in the city of Vuhledar together with his wife (she is also from Vuhledar) and two sons (10 and 7 years) who go to school there.

He likes his town: “It's a good city: small, compact”. He admits that the town is very dependent on the mining: "If there are no mines, no one will live on this territory: “The whole town participates in the work in the mines. These mines create them. If there are no factories, there will be no city, no people, and no land”.

Since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, Vuhledar has been very close to the frontline. The city and its economy were built around the idea of coal production, but due to power supply disruptions and hostilities, the coal mines are reportedly flooded.

Andrij says that times are harder on his job since the Russian war in Donbas began 8 years ago: “Currently, the coal industry is not going through the best of times due to the whole situation in the country, etc. We are close to the border with ... how shall I put it ... military operations." It affected the work in the mine; it became more difficult. We have little support; the plant is large, which requires support and funding to make it move, and people work here”, he says. “To put it simply, it must be well paid and supported”, Andrij continues.

According to Andrij, 11-12 years ago, the miner was getting a salary of $1,000. Now because of the inflation the miner gets $300-400, but the work has not changed: “It is as heavy as it was. But the work is no longer valued the way it was. It might be appreciated more. So that people can afford a vacation with their family by the sea, relax, go to a resort or for treatment. All this in our country depends on financial well-being. Therefore, if the plant works, then the workers will be prosperous”. Andrij also doesn’t believe that the miner profession can disappear in the nearest future: “I think about switching to other sources of energy. I read the news, and I know that they want to end the coal industry. Maybe it will happen in the future, but now we need to support this industry in every possible way”.

In Ukraine the state owns primarily unprofitable mines with complex mining and geology which require significant subsidies to function. The state support aimed at ensuring coal mining activities and domestic production of coal makes billions of UAH annually. At the same time, the strong financial public incentive provided to the coal sector has not proved to be effective according to multiple reports and investigations.

#Subsidies

Journalist Denys Kazanskyj speaks on the mines situated on the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. He says, now Ukraine is getting a lot less coal as a large number of mines are closed on those territories. “In Ukraine, once there was a policy of supporting the mines, they received subsidies even if they were not viable. Accordingly, mines that produced little coal worked. Now there is no money because Russia refused subsidies. During these seven years, dozens of mines were closed entirely and sunk. But those that more or less have a supply of coal have been working. They work irregularly. They can do nothing for a month, then extract, and fill the warehouse”.

But the demand for coal decreases, no one buys it from warehouses even in Russia, says Denys: “Miners can be sent on a leave at their own expense. They don't work, and they don’t get paid. They can be challenged to work, if the work on the mine appears again, but their pay has fallen very much compared to the situation before the war in the days of Ukraine. It is not clear how long these mines will be able to work in this way because they work very poorly, and no one puts money into them. Russia does not do this because it is not its territory. Because in Ukraine mines got it and got new machines. And here they work until the end of extraction, and in a few years, they can be just shut down”.

#Energy policy

More than a third of the energy coal was extracted in the occupied part of Donbas, which is outside the control of the Kyiv authorities, explains Yuriy Onyshkiv. The mines there were producing coal for combustion at power plants. “In 2014 it was critical because companies produced electricity from anthracite. They just took anthracite, which remained outside the border, outside of the Kyiv authorities’ control”, he adds.

To avoid using the coal from the occupied territories, “the Ukrainian thermal power stations switched to other brands of coal, which they could acquire on their territory or import’, continues Mr Onishchyv.

He explains that “in fact, Ukraine is now almost entirely self-sufficient in obtaining its own coal; coal consumption for electricity production has decreased, and electricity generation from new energy sources has increased. From time to time, coal imports from the United States occur”.

Between 2013 and 2021, says Jurij, the electricity production from coal has decreased from 47 to 35%: “The reason for this was the reduction of electricity production, and in general, reduced electricity consumption by annexing Crimea and disconnecting part of Donbas by Russia, but also by increasing the activities of alternative energy sources”.

While nuclear energy generally occupied the most critical place in the energy mix (about 50%) in Ukraine, the electricity output from renewable sources (wind, solar and bioenergy) ten years ago was close to zero. “Today it is 9-10%”, he adds.

Mr Onishchyv foresees that the trend on increasing the share of renewable sources in the energy mix will continue, while the share of coal will continue to decrease: “Not because of the climate goals that the Ukrainian government has adopted, but because of those that the EU has”. To be able to export its electricity to the EU in the future, Ukraine must prove that either the energy comes from clean sources or clean sources will start prevailing in the energy mix  gradually. “Therefore, now the production of energy from coal in Ukraine ceases”, sums up Mr Onishchyv.

The question of Ukraine’s future electricity mix and decarbonisation of the energy sector as a whole becomes even more relevant in the coming years, as Ukraine’s power system became connected to the EU one ahead of schedule due to Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Activist Volodymyr Sirotin together with the team is approaching the illegal mine in Lysychansk, Ukraine, Luhansk region.

He explains that the mine was illegal, because, according to Ukrainian law, the extraction of open-pit coal is prohibited. “The first illegal deposit in the region was found in 2018. It's already closed, and it's not working. In 2018, activists of our city researched this site. They wrote applications to local deputies, local authorities, and the police. Deputies sent applications at the regional level to the governor. Sometimes the police came; coal was confiscated here, and they took it to the warehouse to keep there. What about the subsequent fate of this coal? No one knows where it disappeared”.

Sirotin says that the illegal mining in this place is suspended for the moment. “They say that when it comes to the new discovery, they are still preparing documents for legalization. We'll see how it goes”, sums up Volodymyr.

The activists feel harmed, says Volodymyr. There are nature reserves in the area of the Gelatin Factory, and there is Kurgan. Law prohibits working on the ground next to such objects. “It is punishable. But as we can see, in this situation, they bypassed the law, somehow so far”, the activist says.

“In 2018, a trailer worked here, lifting a layer of coal and transferring it to trucks; there was also a 35-ton car”, says Volodymyr explaining how the coal was transported illegally from the place. The tracks filled with coal left in the evening. The activists counted from 8 to 15 cars during the night. “They passed through the town Matrosskoye, a glass factory district, through the town and no one knew what happened to coal further”, Volodymyr explains.

Sirotin concludes that they managed to do it unnoticed; "the place is a little far from the nearest place where people live. At that point, the city had its problems. The local government did not look at the illegal coal deposit because of its political war”, he says.

Since our interview took place, the situation in Lysychansk and nearby towns deteriorated further, as the territories were badly damaged and are occupied by the Russian military (as of August 2022).

#Environment

Russia’s war in the Donbas that has been taking place for more than 8 years now does not only cause social, economic, and raw material issues. It's also deepening an environmental disaster. Shortage of drinking water in the east of Ukraine is already becoming an urgency, not only in the occupied territories but also in the part of Donbas under the control of the Ukrainian government.

Butchenko says that the closure of the mines has not been implemented according to the established rules and regulations. According to the procedures, developed back in the USSR, even if the mine is closed, it must be under control all the time: water must be pumped out, workover checks need to be constantly conducted and so on. “Most of all, it concerns the Donetsk region, there is a mine where there was a nuclear explosion. We have results from environmentalists [showing] that these dangerous elements are already in groundwater. When I worked, there were earthquakes because the mines went deeper [and deeper]”.

He explains that the earthquakes happened during the times when the closures were done according to the rules, “… there will be more incidents with earthquakes, which will affect the houses and ruin them”, he continues. “Secondly, and most importantly, the water in the mine will go to underground sources that people use (wells, bores). This is a pretty big ecological problem in the first place for those people who live there. But who's talking about it? No one knows that”.

“There's been no water for weeks now. People will have to find water somewhere. They will dig wells, etc. It forces them to take risks. And this water, which is in the mine, is dangerous and will rise from the underground”, he concludes.

The miner Andrij Mishchenko remembers as the fight started in this area in 2014. It was July, “when Ukraine troops came here, fighting began, 34 people remained in the mine,” says Andrij Miszczenko. He explains that during the shelling, the wires broke off. So the miners gathered, only a few people, and pulled these wires. “For several days they sat in the mine without the change. It was probably about a month and a half. It was tough. At most, the mine was without light in 2014 for about 24 hours”, the miner adds.

Mishchenko explains that the director of the mine, “our Igor Viktorovich  Novoselov”, “when for a day there was no light, turned on the knife switch.” He says that he was almost covered by water and could be killed by electricity. But he turned it on and pumped out the water from the mines’, Mishchenko continues about problems during the hottest phase of the Russian war in Donbas. But in 2017, there was a breakthrough of water from other mines on the occupied territories. The electricity went out there, and no one pumped the water there. “And all this water has now come to Zolote. We were flooded from both sides”, Mishchenko continues.

Mishchenko says that miners stayed in Zolote to give a chance for the future operation of the mine. “If we gave it all up, there'd be nothing but ruins. The mines would be sunk at our expense because they're geographically linked.

"Nowadays, the mine in Zolote needs stronger pumps ," says Mishchenko. The state has not yet financed everything, he says. “For now, we wait.

The project [of renewing the mine] was created beetwen 2015 and 2016. But when the mines were drowned, they just started to implement what we wrote. Mishchenko claims that pumping out the water will save the mines Karbonit, Hirska, and Toshkivska from sinking. He says that nowadays the mine only “pumps out water and ventilates a little to degas the mine production”.

“But the worst thing is that the Zolote mine throws water into the river, which must be cleaned. So they kill the river and that's it. Now you see the water”, Mishchenko concludes.

Vladyslav, a resident in Zolote, remembers that once the water was clean, the river widened. “Now the water is terrible, the colour is terrible. Now nobody swims here. It is the result of the closure of the Pervomaisky mine. The water came from there. Now it's good that the mine in Zolote takes everything on itself and pumps this water. If they shut down the mine [in Zolote], it will be an environmental disaster. The mine will be sunk, and everything from it will come to the surface. It will go into the wells, and there will be no water to drink. It is an ecological threat. Then they will sink the Karbonit, and Hirska mines, and go further to the Toshkivska mine... If the coal mines are sunk, gas and radiation mix with water, and nothing good comes out of it”, says Vladyslav.

Vladyslav says that he rarely comes to the river and only recently saw that it changed the colour to red. Vladyslav’s father works in the mine, and he said to his son that everything from the mine went in the river. “Everyone has their problems. At work, at home. No one thinks about ecology. I hope our government will take reasonable measures to combat the ecological disaster”, sums up Vladyslav.

#Future

In the middle of May 2022, since the beginning of the full-scale military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, coal production at state-owned mines has fallen by 37%. Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko announced it in an interview for Forbes. He added that Ukraine has already lost three mines in the temporarily occupied territories. "They are flooded, and it will be impossible to restore them," the head of the Ministry of Energy said. But according to him, there are no problems with the accumulation of coal; there are already several areas that are being worked out by the ministry.

In the last month, the fiercest fighting has been occurring around places we visited a year ago: Lysychansk, Severodonieck, Zołote and others. A year ago, our heroes shared their thoughts about the future of mines in the region.

Journalist Denys Kazanskyj says that coal mining in the Donbas started falling long “before, in the Ukrainian times”. He says, “this is an old region, where coal is already scarce. In the current conditions, it isn't easy to export, everything is getting more expensive, and these mines are not taken care of properly. I don't think it'll last for many years”. Thus, Denys predicts that the government will gradually close the mines, and people will leave.

“Ukraine buys coal in South Africa and thus diversifies coal imports. Of course, there are changes because we do not introduce coal from the Donbas”, he adds.

“Ukraine continues to support unprofitable mines that work poorly. But they are supported because it is a political decision. There are mines given in concessions; they belong to private individuals. That is, private work as private ones, state work as state ones. That’s it, everything remains stable as it was” says Kazanskyj.

To the contrary, Volodymyr Gert says, keeping the mines must be an aim. “We have a new horizon for 20 years of coal mining. "These are jobs; these are people," Mr Gert argues.

The miner Oleksandr doesn’t know what he will do if the mine is shut down. “It's just throwing everything we had and going somewhere. They tell me to go to Poland too, because my friend lives there. Or to Russia. I will be looking for something to be able to earn a living for my family”, says the miner.

Maksym thinks even more mines will be closed. “According to various estimates, in the uncontrolled [by Ukraine] areas there are more than 40 mines closed”, he says.

Journalist and ex-miner Maksym Butchenko explains that the unemployment rate is very high there. "A lot of people go to Russia. A lot of people go to the troops of Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It's not an accident," he says. "If people would generally work there, why would they go to the army, why go to Russia, why talk about the fact that Ukraine is putting pressure on them. When you watch the propaganda, people are told that Ukraine is guilty. The guilty are the people that lobby for their interests in this region”, Butchenko concludes.