Armed men have seized Horlivka-based Novy mill and taken expensive rare metals from its warehouses, the local Web site Gorlovka.ua has reported.
“The armed men drove into the territory of the mill, and now they’ve been doing whatever they want,” the mill’s director told Gorlovka.ua.
The mill, which employs 75 people, is a strategic asset of Ukraine’s state reserves. It has warehouses stocked with large volumes of different commodities. The enterprise operates a fleet of trucks, a railway branch line, and owns locomotives.
A source at Horlivka’s Mykytivske police department told the Web site that the men in masks used two vehicles belonging to the enterprise to remove several tonnes of cobalt, and more than 10 kg of rare metals (indium, zirconium, and niobium) from the warehouses. These metals are expensive and are used in nuclear power engineering, medicine and pyrotechnics.
The mill itself is most likely now controlled by the gang of terrorist Igor Bezler (nom de guerre Bes, or Devil), Gorlovka.ua wrote.
