ByAFP
June 10, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shake hands after talks in Kyiv -
Copyright AFP Sergei SUPINSKY
Anna MALPAS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that counteroffensive action was underway as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Kyiv and accused Russia over flooding from the breached Kakhovka dam.
“Counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine: at which stage I will not talk in detail,” Zelensky said at a joint press conference in Kyiv with Trudeau.
Zelensky commented after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Kyiv’s long-expected counteroffensive was already failing.
Russia has reported thwarting Ukrainian attacks in the east and south that some observers have interpreted as the start of a large-scale counteroffensive.
“It’s interesting what Putin said about our counteroffensive. It is important that Russia always feels this: that they do not have long left, in my opinion,” Zelensky said.
He added that he was in daily touch with military commanders including armed forces chief Valery Zaluzhny and “everyone is positive now — tell that to Putin!”
Trudeau, 51, and Zelensky, 45, hugged each other and used each other’s first names as the Canadian leader made his second unannounced visit to Kyiv since full-scale war broke out in February last year.
Canada, which hosts a large Ukrainian diaspora, has been one of Kyiv’s key allies since the Russian invasion.
It has provided Ukraine with significant military aid, trained more than 36,000 soldiers and adopted sanctions against Moscow.
– ‘Direct consequence’ –
Trudeau denounced Russia’s role in the destruction of the Russian-controlled Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday.
The flooding from the breached dam has forced thousands to flee their homes and sparked fears of humanitarian and environmental disasters.
Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the dam, while Moscow says Kyiv fired on it.
Pledging 10 million Canadian dollars (US $7.5 million) in new funding for flood relief, Trudeau said the dam’s destruction was the “direct consequence” of Russia’s invasion.
“There is absolutely no doubt in our minds that the destruction of the dam was a direct consequence of Russia’s decision to invade a peaceful neighbour,” Trudeau said.
He added he was certain that Moscow would be held accountable for its actions in Ukraine.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine has devastated infrastructure, has destroyed families and taken lives and is causing economic, food, energy shortages around the world. Russia is responsible and will be held to account.”
– Pilot training –
The Canadian leader said he would provide 500 million Canadian dollars in new funding for military assistance to Ukraine.
He also pledged Canada would be part of the multinational efforts to train Ukraine’s fighter pilots.
Ottawa will also provide 10,000 ammunition rounds and 288 AIM-7 missiles to be repurposed in the United States and used in air defence systems.
Earlier in the day Trudeau placed flowers by a wall of remembrance displaying the faces of soldiers killed in combat while a military orchestra played.
He also visited an open-air exhibition featuring destroyed Russian military vehicles.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Oleksandr Polishchuk handed Trudeau a box that he said held shrapnel from a rocket that fell on the Black Sea port city of Odesa.
He said the gift was intended to remind Trudeau of Ukraine’s suffering from Russian strikes.
Three people were killed early Saturday in a fire sparked by debris from shot-down Russian drones in the Odesa region.
A group of Ukrainian soldiers who had received training in Canada spoke with Trudeau.
One of them, Colonel Petro Ostapchuk, told reporters the troops received specialised training for snipers, engineers and young commanders.
“It’s a great privilege to meet the prime minister,” he said.
Ukraine coal propped up by miners who fled Russian occupation
ByAFP
June 10, 2023
Of the 89 coal mines that were in Ukraine at the break-up of the Soviet Union, 71 are in the eastern Donbas region, now partly held by Russian forces -
ByAFP
June 10, 2023
Of the 89 coal mines that were in Ukraine at the break-up of the Soviet Union, 71 are in the eastern Donbas region, now partly held by Russian forces -
Copyright Colombian Presidency/AFP Handout
Dave CLARK
Ukraine’s energy sector is under attack.
Kyiv power stations have been targeted by cruise missiles, the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam has been breached and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is under Russian occupation.
Of the 89 coal mines that were in newly-independent Ukraine at the break-up of the Soviet Union, 71 are in the eastern Donbas region, now partly held by Russian forces.
But the remaining mines — which power 30 percent of Ukraine’s grid — are working hard, thanks to an influx of new recruits fleeing the Russian-occupied east.
In the build-up to the war, some in Moscow argued Russia had a duty to defend Russian speakers in the Donbas from alleged persecution by Ukrainian nationalists.
But in February last year, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion and tightened its grip on the east of the country, many civilians fled west into Kyiv-held towns.
Meanwhile, mines in Russian-occupied areas or close to the frontline closed and some were flooded as power to their water pumps was cut.
Further inside Ukraine, there was another problem.
“When the full-scale war started a lot of miners from this area enlisted as volunteers,” said Oleg Bilousov, chief engineer at a cluster of mines in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk.
Mineworkers who remained had to work double shifts to maintain production.
– ‘Impossible to survive’ –
“It was a hard time for the company and for the country,” Bilousov said, describing how during four blackouts last year miners trapped underground had to be evacuated.
Relief for Ukraine’s industry came from miners from the Donbas, men and women that Moscow had once tried to portray as a downtrodden minority cut off from their motherland.
Some of those kicked out of pits in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions headed to central Ukraine, finding secure employment and contributing to the national war effort.
“Many, many of those who were forced to move from the occupied area wanted to work for us,” said Bilousov, adding that Donbas-born miners now make up a third of his 2,780 workers.
Under a landscape of rolling green fields splashed with swathes of red poppies, Ukraine’s renowned fertile black earth gives way to even richer seams of black coal.
Under a towering headframe equipped with a powerful winch, a rusty steel lift lowers the miners down a 180-meter (590-foot) shaft.
Then the workers clamber into closed metal trucks behind an electric locomotive and are carried down more than a kilometre of galleries to the coalface, 370 metres down.
Here, miners like 37-year-old Artyom, who studied in now occupied Donetsk, describe the mix of political and economic pressures that drove many west.
He laughed off Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s claim to be the Donbas’ protector.
“It’s all fake,” he said, his face smeared with sweat and coal dust as he worked the morning maintenance shift.
Some of his friends fled to Russia and some like him into unoccupied Ukraine, but none now mine the eastern region’s once rich coalfield.
“It’s impossible to survive there. There’s literally no jobs there. Living conditions are really bad, they don’t get paid at all, or receive really little,” he told AFP.
Still, even with the arrival of the Donbas miners, the pit is short of manpower. “Many of them are fighting now, some of them are mobilised,” Artyom said.
Thankfully, the mine does not just rely on “manpower”. Ukraine’s wartime economy has seen women taking up posts that would once have been limited to men.
– ‘I want to go home’ –
This has been a lifeline for 36-year-old Vika, who fled war-torn Lysychansk in the Russian-occupied part of the Lugansk region with her two children, mother and husband.
Before the war, she had worked as a shop assistant in a grocery. Now she is a surface elevator operator in a hard hat and overalls, responsible for the lift to the mine.
“For us, the people who came from over there, can you imagine how it is to suffer from the mines being closed? Where can we work? After losing our homes, we lost our jobs,” she said.
The mines are run by DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private power industry player owned by Donetsk-born billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, reputedly Ukraine’s richest man.
Workers like Vika appreciate the steady salary and health insurance that comes with the job.
“Here I feel fine, even though I cannot speak Ukrainian fluently. It’s not a problem at all,” she said.
“Of course I would love to go home. But I don’t have a home anymore, it’s destroyed. I hope Ukraine gives me my home back, and maybe helps me rebuild it.
“I want to go home, and for home to be Ukraine.”
Dave CLARK
Ukraine’s energy sector is under attack.
Kyiv power stations have been targeted by cruise missiles, the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam has been breached and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is under Russian occupation.
Of the 89 coal mines that were in newly-independent Ukraine at the break-up of the Soviet Union, 71 are in the eastern Donbas region, now partly held by Russian forces.
But the remaining mines — which power 30 percent of Ukraine’s grid — are working hard, thanks to an influx of new recruits fleeing the Russian-occupied east.
In the build-up to the war, some in Moscow argued Russia had a duty to defend Russian speakers in the Donbas from alleged persecution by Ukrainian nationalists.
But in February last year, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion and tightened its grip on the east of the country, many civilians fled west into Kyiv-held towns.
Meanwhile, mines in Russian-occupied areas or close to the frontline closed and some were flooded as power to their water pumps was cut.
Further inside Ukraine, there was another problem.
“When the full-scale war started a lot of miners from this area enlisted as volunteers,” said Oleg Bilousov, chief engineer at a cluster of mines in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk.
Mineworkers who remained had to work double shifts to maintain production.
– ‘Impossible to survive’ –
“It was a hard time for the company and for the country,” Bilousov said, describing how during four blackouts last year miners trapped underground had to be evacuated.
Relief for Ukraine’s industry came from miners from the Donbas, men and women that Moscow had once tried to portray as a downtrodden minority cut off from their motherland.
Some of those kicked out of pits in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions headed to central Ukraine, finding secure employment and contributing to the national war effort.
“Many, many of those who were forced to move from the occupied area wanted to work for us,” said Bilousov, adding that Donbas-born miners now make up a third of his 2,780 workers.
Under a landscape of rolling green fields splashed with swathes of red poppies, Ukraine’s renowned fertile black earth gives way to even richer seams of black coal.
Under a towering headframe equipped with a powerful winch, a rusty steel lift lowers the miners down a 180-meter (590-foot) shaft.
Then the workers clamber into closed metal trucks behind an electric locomotive and are carried down more than a kilometre of galleries to the coalface, 370 metres down.
Here, miners like 37-year-old Artyom, who studied in now occupied Donetsk, describe the mix of political and economic pressures that drove many west.
He laughed off Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s claim to be the Donbas’ protector.
“It’s all fake,” he said, his face smeared with sweat and coal dust as he worked the morning maintenance shift.
Some of his friends fled to Russia and some like him into unoccupied Ukraine, but none now mine the eastern region’s once rich coalfield.
“It’s impossible to survive there. There’s literally no jobs there. Living conditions are really bad, they don’t get paid at all, or receive really little,” he told AFP.
Still, even with the arrival of the Donbas miners, the pit is short of manpower. “Many of them are fighting now, some of them are mobilised,” Artyom said.
Thankfully, the mine does not just rely on “manpower”. Ukraine’s wartime economy has seen women taking up posts that would once have been limited to men.
– ‘I want to go home’ –
This has been a lifeline for 36-year-old Vika, who fled war-torn Lysychansk in the Russian-occupied part of the Lugansk region with her two children, mother and husband.
Before the war, she had worked as a shop assistant in a grocery. Now she is a surface elevator operator in a hard hat and overalls, responsible for the lift to the mine.
“For us, the people who came from over there, can you imagine how it is to suffer from the mines being closed? Where can we work? After losing our homes, we lost our jobs,” she said.
The mines are run by DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private power industry player owned by Donetsk-born billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, reputedly Ukraine’s richest man.
Workers like Vika appreciate the steady salary and health insurance that comes with the job.
“Here I feel fine, even though I cannot speak Ukrainian fluently. It’s not a problem at all,” she said.
“Of course I would love to go home. But I don’t have a home anymore, it’s destroyed. I hope Ukraine gives me my home back, and maybe helps me rebuild it.
“I want to go home, and for home to be Ukraine.”
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