Coal from Russian-occupied areas of the Donbas, which is at war with Ukraine, may be passing through Belarus and being sold back to Ukraine, according to reports analyzing Belarusian government statistics.
Belarusian coal exports to Ukraine jumped by hundreds of percentage points in 2018 compared to 2017 across almost most categories, according to the National Statistical Committee of Belarus. The total mass of rock coal exports to Ukraine rose by 946 percent to more than a half-million tons. The dollar value of these exports rose by 798 percent, to $50.3 million. Belarusian exports of anthracite, the highest grade of coal, to Ukraine, rose by 307 percent to $8.8 million.
There appears to be no other likely source other than Russian-controlled Donbas. Ukrainian veterans at one time mounted a vigorous blockade on direct trade between Russian-occupied Donbas and Ukraine, perhaps prompting the need for more circuitous route. The Kyiv Post in 2017 extensively covered the blockade efforts in this story and in this photo gallery. The issue is a highly emotional one, with some favoring a complete ban on trade with the Russian-occupied areas, condemning it as “blood money” considering the 13,000 Ukrainians killed by Russia’s war. Others say that those supplying the needed coal are Ukrainians, too, in need of jobs and money.
Ukraine’s own State Statistics Service lacks this information. According to Ukrstat, Russia, Moldova and Kazakhstan are the only former Soviet republics that export coal into Ukraine. Coal also comes to Ukraine from South Africa, the Americas and European Union states.
According to the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the republic “does not have a massive mineral resource base” and “imports a large number of fuels” to meet its own demand. Belarus’s carbon reserves are largely “brown coal,” a low-grade type of coal.
Data from sites such as World Atlas and the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that Belarus produces very little of its own coal. Belarus lacks and has to import high-quality coals such as anthracite, which consists of almost pure carbon. Anthracite has applications in energy generation and in metallurgy, where its purity is prized.
Belarusian statistics show that in 2017, it barely exported any anthracite or rock coal. However, anthracite is produced in Ukraine’s Donets Basin, currently occupied by Russian authorities. Donbas is famous for its coal mines.
Ukrainian media and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty this week drew a possible link between the Belarusian statistics and the possibility that Belarus is acting as a transit point for coal that’s being sold back to Ukraine.
Ukraine had consistently accused Russia of illegally extracting and selling coal from its eastern reaches. Ukraine’s Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons, Vadym Chernysh, stated in January that Russia annually exports 2.8 million tons of anthracite from the occupied areas, worth a total of $288 million.
Lending confirmation to these claims, on January 7, a ship crewed by Ukrainians flying a Panama flag sank near Turkey — the vessel was carrying coal from the Russian city of Azov. The coal most likely came from the temporarily occupied territories, such as Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Donbas anthracite was also found to have been exported to Poland in 2018.
Belarusian journalists first sounded the alarm that coal from the occupied Ukrainian territories may be entering Belarus in 2018. Belarusian media reports said that Belarus may be a middleman in the trade of coal from occupied Ukraine into Poland or the rest of Ukraine. RFE/RL’s Belarusian reporters pointed to two possible Ukrainian companies that work with coal – billionaire Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK and state-owned company Centrenergo, which was once slated to be privatized. RFE/RL quoted a DTEK spokesman as saying that “as far as [he knows, DTEK] did not import coal from Belarus.” Centrenergo has yet to respond to requests for comment.
