#Battle #Eastern #Ukraine #miners #work #coal
Deep underground, not far from the Ukrainian front lines, coal miners dig in the bowels of the earth, preoccupied with the war but resigned to getting the job done.
Since Moscow’s troops failed to storm Kyiv, the conflict has shifted to the agricultural south and the industrial, coal-rich Donbass in the east.
Founded 43 years ago, when Ukraine was still part of the USSR, a mine outside the city of Pavlograd in the Dnepropetrovsk region employs 4,000 workers on rotating shifts.
Just 170 kilometers (106 miles) from the pro-Russian separatist stronghold of Donetsk, miner Oleksandr Oksen says thoughts are often with colleagues on the front lines.
“We are there in spirit, but the coal has to be dug sometimes,” says the 42-year-old mine boss.
About 800 employees have been called up to serve as soldiers in the war that is raging 150 kilometers to the east and is soon entering its seventh month.
Mine officials insist production has remained the same.
From the ground floor, the facility conveys the flair of a university campus. Willow fronds sway in the breeze and a water feature bubbles next to a waist-high giant chess set.
But 1,200 feet (370 meters) down an elevator shaft that howls with the sound of tortured metal as it descends, the rigors of coal mining work begin.
The heat is suffocating and the air is saturated with seeping dust. There is said to be a ghost in the mine that helps the workers, but here too they are haunted by the fear of war.
Phones have to be checked in at the start of the shift, and employees don’t find out about the latest developments — and the safety of friends and family — until they step back into the sunlight six hours later.
“The first thing they do when they leave the mine is pick up the phone and call,” said Vasyl, the director of the mining complex, who asked that his last name not be given.
After plummeting into the tunnels, workers are transported 3.6 kilometers in a squat wagon – like a giant filing cabinet turned on its side – before walking up a narrow tunnel whose rock walls are restrained by rusting metal cages.
A ragged conveyor belt runs along the length, quickly transporting the coal to carts that transport it to an elevator, and then up to the surface where it is transported to the power plants.
The rock slit is screened further and further down until it is only a meter high.
Deep inside, Volodymyr Palienko, 33, sits hunched over at his post, tinkering with the metal maw of a machine.
“What happens in our country affects everyone,” he says. “Everyone has friends and acquaintances who are involved in some way.”
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