Trade unions representing mineworkers caught in the crossfire of Ukraine’s ruinous military conflict have appealed for support – and received it – from the National Union of Mineworkers in the UK.
Fighting has intensified in Donetsk this week – a grim reminder of why solidarity matters.
The NUM, which is calling for peaceful resolution of the conflict and for “all interference from outside Ukraine to stop”, welcomed a
delegation of local union officials from eastern Ukraine to the Durham miners gala in July last year.
The delegates, from the Dnepropetrovsk branch of the Ukraine Coal Industry Trade Union (PRUP), “asked us to help put their point of view across internationally”, Chris Kitchen, NUM national secretary, said.
“Most of their members are employed by DTEK [an energy company controlled by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man and the foremost oligarch in Donetsk]. They wanted to know about our experience of dealing with