REUTERS
From March 2017 to December 2018, Russian occupation forces exported almost 6 million tonnes of anthracite mined in the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions under their control.
Russia has been supplying anthracite mined in the occupied territory of Donbas to at least 19 countries, including Poland, Turkey, Georgia, Egypt, and Canada.
That's according to a study by one of Ukraine's largest energy companies, Liga.net reports.
Europe and Turkey are the main consumers of anthracite originating from the occupied Donbas. According to the study, which is at Liga.net's disposal, Turkey from March 2017 to December 2018 bought almost 3 million tonnes of coal of said brand. Romania was the second in terms of volumes with 1.02 million tonnes, and the third goes Belgium with 876,990 tonnes. They are followed by Poland (333,132 tonnes) and Bulgaria (129,176 tonnes).
The total volume of deliveries for the reporting period is estimated at 5.96 million tonnes.
According to the estimates of the Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Territories, 2.8 million tonnes of coal worth $288 million is exported from the occupied Donbas annually.
Russian Railways and Russia's Federal Customs' data say that in 2015, nearly 1.3 mln tonnes of anthracite was exported from the region, while in 2016 it was 940,000 tonnes. For the first nine months of 2017, the volume of coal smuggled out amounted to 890,000 tonnes. And these are only the volumes that are officially included in the statistics of Russian rail traffic.
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Smuggling profits finance the terrorist "republics" of "DPR" and "LPR".
According to the Washington Post investigation, the parties maintain financial ties through the "banking system" of another unrecognized "republic", South Ossetia.
"Half of the fuel that comes from Donbas to the Russian Federation is consumed by enterprises in Rostov region — the main consumer being Novocherkasskaya HPP [part of Gazprom]. The rest is exported to other countries," a source at DTEK told Liga.net. Coal is smuggled to Russia by a company owned by a fugitive businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, Gas Alliance. The company is a monopoly in the market. According to the Russian RBC news agency, in March 2018, the Ministry of Economy of the Russian Federation banned other traders from doing business with the "LPR" and "DPR."