September 2016: miners from Novovolysnk No.10 in west Ukraine protest the government's plans to close their mine. (c) RIA Novosti. All rights reserved.Since 2014, war has redrawn the map of Ukraine, removing many of its mining operations. Half of Ukraine’s 150 mines operational before 2014 are now in the territories of the so-called “Peoples’ Republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk, and some have been destroyed or flooded as a result of military action.
Despite considerable losses, the Ukrainian government still runs 35 mines, 24 of which are in government-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. Another 12 operate outside the Donbas, including some in the Lviv and Volyn regions in the west of the country.
These state-owned mines provide work for around 50,000 people, many of whom may however soon lose their jobs — Ukraine’s ministry of energy and coal mining plans to close 11 mines and privatise 14 more. And those that can’t be sold, it seems, will also be closed.
