Over 9 years of occupation in Donbas, the number of mines has decreased almost fivefold – NGO “Eastern Human Rights Group”

The number of people working in the coal industry has decreased by almost 15 times. This was stated by Vira Yastrebova, attorney, director of the NGO “Shidna Pravosazahisna Grupa” (Eastern Human Rights Group), at a briefing at the Media Center Ukraine – Odesa.

In her opinion, russia is now deliberately destroying the coal industry in the occupied territories.

“In 2014, there were 96 coal mines and about 85 auxiliary enterprises serving the coal industry in the territories controlled by the russian occupants. Today, there are 18 mines left in these territories of Ukraine, of which only two are operating at 30% of their pre-occupation capacity. In total, the coal industry in the occupied territories employs 8-12 thousand people,” – the human rights activist said.

She also noted that in 2022, 213 thousand employees of coal enterprises were subjected to forced mobilization by the occupiers, and 65-72% of them went missing or were killed in the first five months of russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news