Miners in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbass have not been paid wages for several months; they intend to start mass protests in Kyiv. The head of the independent trade union of miners of Ukraine, Mikhail Volynets, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from Yulia Tymoshenko’s party, announced this at the talk show “Freedom of Speech,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Volynets, the situation at state-owned Ukrainian mines is complicated by the fact that due to a lack of funds, not only have wage arrears arise, but also some enterprises are disconnected from electricity. The intrigue is that electricity is supplied by a company associated with oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, but he refuses to get involved.
“Salaries have not been paid for four months now. The debt will already amount to more than UAH 300 million. And no one is going to pay these salaries.
Nearby is the city of Lisichansk, where the Melnikov base mine is, where the power has been cut off for three weeks. There are huge reserves of coal there; the mine would have to provide our state with its own coal.
This is just corruption, just a mafia - Kolomoisky is behind Centrenergo, he appoints the management, the board of directors, the Cabinet of Ministers approves the acting. Potapenko, and behind Potapenko is Kolomoisky.
And cheap electricity is supplied from Centerenergo enterprises to Kolomoisky’s ferroalloy plants. And what kind of electricity market is this, which we entered on July 1? And why should miners suffer?” - he said.
According to him, the actions will continue until the miners achieve repayment of their wage arrears.
“The miners buy tickets to Kyiv on the 29th only one way, they are not going to go home,” said Mikhail Volynets.