The Russian Plundering of Donbass, Ukraine

By Slava Tsukerman

There is no military action anymore in Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. It is the time to sum up the aftermath of the war.

Donbass was always considered to be Ukraine’s industrial heartland. When Ukraine was a part of the USSR, Donbass was known as one of the most important industrial centers of the USSR.

Donbass is dominated by heavy industry, such as coal mining and metallurgy.

The word “Donbass” is a blend of words formed from Donets Basin and the river Donets that flows through it. The Donets coalfield, which extends across the east to Russian territory, is the fourth largest in Europe, with extractable reserves estimated at over 10 billion tons. While annual extraction of coal has decreased since the 1970s, Donbass remains an important supplier.

Signs on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk read: “Donbass is the heart of Ukraine”. The region around the city of Donetsk makes up only 5% of Ukraine’s territory. About 10% of the Ukrainian population lives there, but they produce 20% of gross domestic product and about a quarter of Ukraine’s export volume. Prior to the start of the region’s war in April 2014, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Donbass together produced about 30% of Ukraine’s exports. The rest of Ukraine is dominated by agriculture.

In Donbass, special steel is produced for the tanks of the Russian armed forces, and most Russian combat helicopters fly with engines built in the area.

Twelve types of Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, along with spare parts and maintenance, come from the eastern Ukraine.

Prior to the recent military conflict it was always known that there is a codependence between Russian and Ukrainian industries. Russia needed products produced in Ukraine, on the other hand the Ukrainian products – systems and equipment – are made especially for the Russian market and couldn’t be sold readily on other markets.

According to the latest publications in the Ukrainian media Russian government partly solved this problem during the occupation of Donbass.

Dozens of Donbass plants and factories are completely dismantled and all the equipment is moved to Russia.

Among such relocated plants are the world famous plant Topaz, known for development of military electronic warfare systems; the unique plant Donets, which is producing technology for growing crystals for microelectronics; the factory of equipment for space industry Youth.

Many plants had equipment too heavy to be moved to Russia. That equipment was just cut to peaces to be used as scrap-metal.

All possible actions were made to prevent Ukraine to make Donbass useful for Ukrainian economy in the near future.

Last week new information was released, which discloses some unexpected bad news for Ukranians, who as a result of the war found themselves in the Russian territory. Russian propaganda was insisting on the information that about 2.6 million of refugees migrated from “fascist” Ukraine and happily found their new home in Russia.

After the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, Russia allowed Ukrainian citizens and stateless persons who came to Russia from Ukraine to stay in Russia. From November 1, Russia canceled these migratory preferences for everybody but former residents of Donbass. Now most of the refugees from Ukraine will be able to stay in Russia only for 90 days.

The Russian non–governmental Refugee Committee believes that this decision is a part of the general policy of the Russian government, aimed at the gradual disposal of the representatives of the Ukrainian people from Russia. They believe that people from Donbass will soon also lose their preferences.

The news was not presented officially by the Russian press. Russian and Ukrainiane readers learned it from Internet translations of the German publication in Deutsche Welle.

In this article Deutsche Welle also describes cases where refugees from Ukraine, who are in dire need for medical care, cannot get it in Russia (Moscow). The Russian authorities brazenly and cynically deny it.

This September, even Russian media was writing about refugees from Ukraine who were starving, having no housing and no jobs in Siberian city of Barnaul, where they were sent by Russian authorities.

Naturally, now, when hostilities in Donbass are almost ceased, people who fled from Donbass to Russia are returning home en masse. This was confirmed in early October by Romodanovsky, the head of the Russian Federal Migration Service in an interview byTV channel Russia 24. According to him, every 10 days, 1300-1500 people return to Ukraine from Russia.

The October 28 report of the Committee of Civil Initiatives, prepared by its experts in the subject of migration argued that the Russian authorities have not coped with the task of integrating Ukrainian refugees. The experts believe that Russia, not only failed to help those in need, but also failed to use efficiently the labor potential of the refugees from the Ukraine, which, by their training favorably outperformed migrants from Central Asia. “The distribution of the refugees throughout the territory of the Russian Federation was carried out without taking into account their existing professions and specialties. As a result, experienced engineers and professionals with technical specialties were forced to work as manual workers” according to the report.

“Educated professionals, culturally close to us were coming to us from Ukraine and we could not accept them, even though the labor market desperately needs migrants,” said Jeanne Zayonchkovskaya, the Head of the Laboratory for Migration Studies of the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the presentation of the report of the Laboratory.