The miner uprising started with a small strike at a local mine. On June 5, pitmen at ‘Komsomolskaya’ in Antratsyt city, in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, refused to rise to the surface. They were demanding to get paid. The word spread across the region. Two days later, several employees of the Belorechenskaya mine decided to join the Komsomolskaya strike. But they were arrested by the so-called state security service. According to the co-founder of the Independent Trade Union of Donbas Miners, Alexander Vaskovsky, they were tortured to reveal the names of others planning to join the protest. After that, there was another wave of arrests.
Ukraine's Energy Challenge
Hromadske: Mining protest crackdown in occupied Donbas
Miners warm themselves up by a fire in a barrel as they block the road to a coal mine in the small Ukrainian town of Novogrodivka, Donetsk region, during a strike on Feb. 17, 2018.
