Police say separatists transfer stolen property, natural resources to Russia
International missions, regional police and experts have revealed evidence of separatists’ illegal activities in the occupied territories, including transportation to the Russian Federation of property stolen from coal mines and huge industrial factories.
“Militants dismantled and took equipment from the Mashzavod-100 electronic engineering plant in Luhansk, which developed and manufactured equipment for the production of single crystals,” the pro-Kyiv Luhansk regional police department said in a statement. “The same situation is in Krasnodon’s Yunist factory, which mainly produces specialised products for missile and aerospace industries. All equipment was dismantled and taken out.”
Social activists and residents confirm the facts of separatists’ illegal activities in Donbas.
“We lost many unique factories,” Dmytro Snegiryov, head of the Prava Sprava civil initiative, told SETimes. “A really big loss was the Luhansk Cartridge Works factory. Specialists from Chelyabinsk came and took half of its production line. A crystals factory in Luhansk has also suffered.”
Police and international observers said that stolen coal and goods are transported to Russia.
“According to preliminary information, militants transported stolen industrial equipment and Ukrainian coal to the Russian Federation,” the Luhansk regional police website said.
OSCE monitors observed movement of full trucks crossing the border at Russian checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk on October 15th.
“Every day observer teams continued to observe convoys of five to seven dump trucks crossing into Ukraine and back,” according to the OSCE monitoring mission’s weekly report. “The trucks are reportedly transporting coal from Ukraine to Russia. Several times the observer saw Russian Federation customs officers verifying if the trucks were empty while exiting the Russian Federation.”
Experts said that humanitarian convoys from Russia served for the purpose of taking out stolen equipment from Donbas as nobody checked them from the Ukrainian side. Now convoys don’t move into Ukraine even though the humanitarian situation in Donbas is critical, and it is now much easier to transfer goods and coal from Donbas, analysts said.
“Earlier [coal, goods, equipment] were all taken out by humanitarian convoys, because it was difficult to organise such a transfer through other means. Separatists controlled only 60 kilometres of the border,” Andriy Novak, head of the Committee of Economists of Ukraine, told SETimes.
Social activists and experts said separatists are stealing both private and public property.
“They [separatists] very often discover empty apartments and houses and breaking in to steal goods they like or need,” Novak said.
Oleksiy Melnyk, the co-director of Foreign Relations and International Security Programmes at the Razumkov Centre, said there are some factories in Donbas captured and untouched by separatists since rebels use them for military needs.
“There is confirmed information from Ukrainian soldiers that they found bullets produced in Ukrainian factories in Donbas captured by separatists,” Melnyk told SETimes. “In early October, Russian propaganda showed a so-called secret factory in Donetsk, where separatists organised repair of military units,” Snegiryov said. “We identified this factory. It is a Ukrainian military factory in Snezhnoe. It is really used for repairing of damaged units.”
How can the international community react to separatists’ illegal activities in Donbas and protect Ukraine’s state property? Share your thoughts in the comments section.