In Ukraine, a crucial coal mine attacked by Russian forces finally closes its doors

It was late at night and Anton Telegin was heading toward a large coal mine near Ukraine’s eastern front line, taking advantage of the darkness to escape Russian attack drones.

Mr. Telegin had come to collect his wages and those of some fellow miners, as he did at the end of each month. But this trip, the day after Christmas, was different: Russian troops were at one of the farthest gates of the mine, and he wondered if this would be his last trip to the place where he had worked for 18 years . In recent months, he and his colleagues have worked hard in the face of escalating Russian attacks.

Two days earlier, a strike had destroyed the power station’s electrical substation, interrupting operations. Sensing the end, some miners left, taking their towels and shampoo to the locker rooms where they scraped off the soot at the end of their long work days.

“People were packing their bags and already saying goodbye,” Mr. Telegin, 40, recalls.

Mr Telegin has not returned to the mine since Christmas and is now in Kyiv. The impending fighting kept the facility out of commission and on Tuesday, Metinvest, the company that owns the mine, announced that the facility was now closed.

The closure of the mine, located just southeast of the besieged town of Pokrovsk, ended Ukraine’s desperate efforts to keep it operating until the very last moment. As Ukraine’s last operational mine producing coking coal – an essential fuel for steel production – it was vital to the country’s steel industry and, ultimately, its war effort.