There isn’t a single coal mine left in the Donetsk oblast that is still extracting coal. This was revealed by Gennady Kovalchuk, the head of the "Donetsk Coal Industry Workers' Union", in an interview with one of the russian Telegram channels.
"In August, the last functioning coal enterprise in the city, the mine named after Skochynsky, ceased coal production and has been put into water drainage mode", - he said.
According to Denis Epifanov, the "minister of Coal and Energy of the DNR", only 16 mines across all ownership forms are still extracting coal in the once-thriving mining region. He also pointed out a sad statistic: "72 coal mining enterprises are being maintained in a life-support mode to ensure hydrogeological safety and are awaiting investors".
As a result, compared to the last pre-war year, 2013, coal production in the "DNR" has fallen from 37.5 million tons to 3 million tons. The operating enterprises were handed over without competition to russian commercial entities, referred to as "investors".