Life on the edge of a cliff
Representatives of the LDPR at the negotiations in Minsk made public emergency statement about the dangerous situation in the mines in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbass. Mining enterprises are closing en masse, equipment is worn out, there are no specialists, huge wage debts. Closed Ukrainian mines are now at risk of being flooded by groundwater. If this happens, there will be a large-scale environmental disaster - the water intakes from which the LPR receives water are located in the mine flooding zone. Kyiv must immediately agree to allow inspections, the people's republics say.
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...The economic and humanitarian troubles of the war-torn Donbass may soon be supplemented by environmental and man-made ones. The situation with coal mines in the territory controlled by Kyiv is threatening and close to catastrophic. The people's republics are sounding the alarm and demanding that Kyiv take urgent measures to ensure the technological and environmental safety of mines in areas occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Kyiv’s position on the issue of coal mine safety is no different from the “average temperature in a hospital” - it is typically schizophrenic. Energy Minister Nasalik, former Gauleiter Tuka, new Gauleiter Zhebrivsky, unanimously repeat that “the separatists are dismantling and removing the mine equipment to an unknown direction.”
Kyiv officials are simply lying. In the LDPR, mining of anthracite coal continues, power plants and pumping systems are operating. But in the territory controlled by Kyiv, power plants stop working and there is no energy to pump out mine water.
Irresponsible indulgence of the national radicals of the Poroshenko regime will lead to the fact that abandoned mines will be flooded, the physical properties of the soil surrounding the mine will change, and this in turn threatens the destruction of not only the mine, but also the housing stock, buildings, road and pipeline networks.
In addition, there is a threat of contamination of groundwater, dirty water entering the drinking water intake, and creating a favorable environment for the spread of epidemics. Uncontrolled methane emissions to the surface, which are extremely dangerous due to explosions and fires, cannot be ruled out.
Experts argue that as a result of the flooding of mines in an area with a population of 3,5 million people, we can talk about “environmental refugees” of 150 – 230 thousand people per year, if proper measures are not taken.
The head of the Ukrainian Independent Trade Union of Miners, Mikhail Volynets, announces the imminent shutdown of 47 mines in the territories controlled by Kyiv. (In total, there are 35 state mines left in the Ukrainian part of Donbass, another 15 are privately owned).
In Ukraine, over the past two years, wage arrears across the industry have reached 400 million hryvnia. It seems that no one is going to solve the problem of debts, and therefore the simplest decision was made - to close the mines and dismiss the people. In Kyiv they promise that a special fund will be created to liquidate the mines, the funds for which will come from concession and rental payments.
Everyone has long known the value of such promises. It is unlikely that even a penny will be spent on preparing the mines for closure, since Kyiv officials are shifting all the blame for the consequences from a sore head to a healthy one.
By and large, the problem of flooding abandoned mines is just one of a whole range of environmental and man-made problems in the region.
Over 200 years of industrial development of Donbass, up to 12 billion cubic meters of coal and rocks have been mined, the volume of created mine workings exceeds 8 billion cubic meters, and the area of territory disturbed as a result of man-made activities reaches 15 thousand square meters. km.
There are about 4000 potentially dangerous industrial facilities located in the Donbass.
Conducting military operations in an industrial region full of coal and chemical production, and even pitted like cheese, is a crime in itself.
The reluctance of the Kyiv authorities to stop the criminal war, the use of heavy weapons, such as multiple launch rocket systems, Tochka-U tactical missiles, and heavy artillery systems, are pushing a huge region to the brink of a catastrophe that can spread far beyond its borders.
The threat of an environmental disaster affecting neighboring states is another reason for the guarantors of the Minsk agreements to put pressure on Kyiv and listen to the idea of the people’s republics to urgently send international inspections with the participation of experts from the LDPR to dangerous enterprises in Donbass.
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