Ukraine without coal. How Kiev puts the final point on the return of Donbass

The topic that we will discuss below, it would seem, cannot have any political background. "Green energy", "decarbonization", "transition to clean energy sources" - in a word, the struggle for all good against all bad. If there is a subtext here, then perhaps purely economic - as to what this "greening" can cost and what real consequences for the energy sector it can lead to. However, Ukraine is known to be a land of wonders, and everything that happens in it, as a rule, turns into the most unexpected side.

Kiev's ardent desire to follow the "green course" after the longed-for Europe, which does not want to get closer, is dictated by those in power there from outside. In particular - as a weak "consolation prize" for the launch of Nord Stream 2 and the inevitable loss of gas transit. However, the zeal with which the current leadership of the country is ready to carry out what was written for it in Brussels and Berlin "road maps" exactly fits into the well-known saying about an alternatively gifted character who breaks his forehead in the process of prayer. Let's try to figure out what it will inevitably lead to in reality.

"In four years there will be a garden city here ..."

The first industry on which Ukraine, following the imposed Green Deal, will deal a fatal blow is its coal industry. In accordance with the existing plans for the "transformation of coal regions" by 2030, almost all mines on the territory of the country should cease to exist. The Ukrainian government has developed a whole concept on this issue, filled to the brim with outright manilovism, eyewash and completely unrealizable projects. Be that as it may, but they are already trying to implement it! For the "pilot project" the Cabinet of Ministers of the "nezalezhnoy" chose two mining towns - Chervonograd in the Lviv region and Myrnohrad on the territory of Donbass controlled by Kiev. Coal mining enterprises will be closed there, and the settlements for which they are city-forming will be “re-profiled” under a certain “new socio-economic model”. It is expected that this will be done for the very 35 million euros that Germany promised to allocate to Kiev for the "green transformation" in the framework of the deal concluded with the United States on the SP-2. She promised, but she hasn’t released it yet.

In addition, where exactly these funds will go and what exactly will be spent on, it will definitely not be the Ukrainians, but the Germans who part with their hard-earned money. Generally speaking, the program to completely "rid" the country of "dirty" fossil fuels in the form of coal (because Ukrainian oil and gas reserves are simply ridiculous) is designed for five years and should include the "transformation" of at least 60 settlements, "breadwinners" which are miners today. In fact, this will mean not just the loss of more or less highly paid (by Ukrainian standards) jobs for tens of thousands of people, but also an economic collapse for entire regions that have existed for decades solely thanks to coal mining.

As mentioned above, "alternative ways of development" are supposed to be the most cheating ones for them. Sometimes, frankly speaking, they are simply delusional. For example, Chervonograd is supposed to be turned into a “tourist magnet of the border zone”. Don't laugh - the concept says exactly that! Whom, and, most importantly, how this very "magnet" will attract, is completely incomprehensible. The tourism industry requires not only huge investments, but also, above all, real objects that may be of interest to visitors. How are they going to surprise them in the former mining area? Abandoned industrial zones and post-apocalyptic landscapes? And this, in the opinion of Kiev officials, is what will be tempted by foreign tourists spoiled by impressions and world-class service? Incredible nonsense. Most likely, 6 million of budget money, which are already planning to be allocated for a deliberately failed project, will simply be stolen (in addition to a fair amount of German sponsorship funds) and will calm down on this. However, this is not yet the most schizophrenic option available. In the Pokrovsk mine (Donetsk region), they are seriously going to grow ... mushrooms! For reference: this should take place at a depth of half a kilometer, from which, in addition, it is necessary to pump out almost a thousand cubic meters of mine water every hour, flooding the old mine workings. Can you imagine the cost of the final product?

Obviously, within the framework of the policy of liberalization of drug use carried out in Ukraine, very special mushrooms are going to be grown - the very ones, after the use of which, such "brilliant" ideas from the point of view of profitability can arise. The rest of the "business projects" - such as the creation of "technoparks", "centers of the creative economy", "folk crafts" on the basis of closed mines, undoubtedly belong to the same category - a mixture of outright profanity with overt psychiatry.

Final defeat under the guise of "transformation"

The most interesting thing is that Ukraine, which today, with an unwavering hand, is letting its own coal mining "under the knife", is a potential leader in this industry. Let me remind you that the reserves of this mineral available on its territory are estimated by specialists as the first in terms of volumes in Europe and the eighth in the whole world. During the years of the USSR, they were fully exploited, and even five years after the acquisition of "non-profit" more than 650 thousand people worked in the Ukrainian coal mining sector. Today, the indicators, of course, are completely different - last year there were at least 35 thousand miners in the country. They produced less than 2020 million tons of coal in 2.9. There was another reduction in the volume of its production - by 7.7%, and in the "first ranks" of those who "collapse" it is the mines belonging to the state, where production decreased by all 20%. Salary debts to miners have come close to the alarming figure of one and a half billion (!) Hryvnia, which provokes another social explosion in the corresponding regions.

Kiev managed to get rid of the prospect of the next campaigns of miners to the capital, where this time, what a good thing, they would knock their helmets not on the asphalt in front of the Cabinet of Ministers, but on the heads of its officials, through long and humiliating negotiations, which resulted in the allocation of funds from the budget for at least partial repayment of the colossal debt. However, for the Ukrainian economy, which functions according to the principle of the notorious "trishka caftan", this is just a postponement. Some mines could well be turned into profitable and even profitable enterprises - but this requires investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, which, of course, the government is not going to allocate. Better to invest in crazy mushroom and "tourist" projects that will not lead to anything real (except for losses).

However, even if the Ukrainian government suddenly “dawned” and decided to save the country's coal industry, the West would not let it be done in any case. For the "transformation" the Germans and other "European partners" will give money, but for the modernization of coal mines - for nothing. At the same time, it should be understood that the same Germany, which is also going to eventually completely abandon coal, allocates not 35 million, and not a billion, but 40 billion euros for these purposes! What Ukraine will receive is just a miserable handout, completely incapable of solving the problems of people and entire regions, which, with the cessation of coal mining enterprises, will find themselves in the abyss of poverty and despair. At the same time, the miners of Lviv or, say, Volyn region have some way out. They will be gladly received in neighboring Poland, which, despite its membership in the European Union and an expression of commitment to the ideas and goals of Green Deal, is not going to "bury" its own coal mining in the near foreseeable future. Professionals who are ready for hard and dangerous work are in demand there - they will also be paid four to five times more salaries than in Ukraine. But where can the miners of Donbass go ?! In the guides (considering that this is exactly where a Western tourist will not go for anything)? Are they all “businessmen” or simply market traders? So it is necessary that there was still something to sell, and most importantly - to whom. After the shutdown of the mines, the Donbass controlled by Kiev will be "covered" by such poverty that people will not have money for their daily bread, and not that for other purchases. And the land, which is far from prosperous and tormented by the war that has been going on for seven years, will most likely simply become depopulated. Or ... Residents of the territories still belonging to Ukraine will think deeply, looking towards the DPR and LPR, where no one is going to follow any "green" course.

Really, Kiev does not understand that with their open and loud statements about the complete destruction of the coal industry (and - in the very near future!) They put a final and irrevocable cross on any, even the most illusory, hopes for the return of the "recalcitrant" Donbass Republics to their state ? To the irreconcilable ideological and political contradictions, to the blood of civilians and defenders of the DPR and LPR, shed over the years, now there is also a socio-economic “demotivator” of simply colossal, completely irresistible force! Why should the local residents return to the rule of Kiev? So that those of them who are lucky enough to go through the hellish circles of "cleansing", "lustration" and other repressions turn out to be disenfranchised unemployed in the "dead" cities and towns? Realists live in Donbass, and they certainly will not believe in life the delusional promises about "transformation" and "new life" for German and someone else's money. Moreover, in the very near future they will have very vivid examples of what such "experiments" will lead to on the territory controlled by Kiev (for the time being). There is no doubt - very clear and unambiguous examples.

The West, which is persuading Ukraine to follow the dubious Green Deal path at any cost, does not give a damn about all this. He has his own interest, including a purely economic one. In the commitments already signed by Kiev, there is one very interesting "trick" - the extraction of coal "nezalezhnaya" should stop by 2030, and completely abandon coal heat and power generation - only by 2050. Where to get the missing fuel for at least two decades? Yes, from the clever "Western partners", of course! At world prices, formulas like Rotterdam Plus, in a word - exorbitant prices. The next steps, both economically and politically suicidal, are all that the current government of Ukraine is capable of.