Almost 6 million tons of coal exported from occupied Donbass to Russia - minister

Almost 6 million tons of anthracite coal have been exported from CADLO to Russia since the beginning of occupation. This was stated by Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Vadym Chernysh in an interview with Ukrinform.

"We know that the Russian Federation constantly demands from CADLO's occupation administrations to increase the "incomes of the economy" in order to avoid social riots among the local population. Therefore, the task was set - to renew the production at all the grabbed Ukrainian assets or, as for coal mines, to continue (and even to increase) the extraction of the main strategic resource - coal", - he said.

According to him, at the same time, quite a small part of this coal is consumed for the generation of electric energy at two local power plants, the rest goes to Russia.

"According to the information we have, about 2.8-2.9 million tons of anthracite coal are exported from the temporarily occupied territories to Russia every year since the capture of Ukrainian mines, that is, almost 6 million tons over the entire period", - the minister said.

He also told that certain manipulations with documents are carried out in Russia, in particular, certificates of origin are being forged, and Ukrainian coal is being sent to other countries for sale as Russian.

"It may happen that its part returned to Ukraine as well. Moreover, Russian customs take into account the export of Ukrainian coal from the occupied territories as raw materials import from Ukraine. However, our fiscal service does not record official deliveries of anthracite coal to Russia. That already confirms the fact of embezzlement" - V.Chernysh noted.

He noted that Ukrainian coal mainly goes to ports in the Rostov oblast, in particular to the port Azov.

"It is being loaded onto the ship there with "certificates", which allegedly confirm the Russian origin of the raw materials, and is being sent to recipients in Europe. It is mainly being bought by companies from Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Italy and other countries. These are the countries that usually used and continue to use anthracite for own energy needs. After all, there are not so many suppliers of this type of fuel in the world, except for Ukraine, - the USA, Russia and South Africa", - the Minister noted.