Nearly 200 Miners Trapped as Russia Attacks DTEK Coal Mine in Central Ukraine

Russian forces attacked a coal mine operated by Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, in the Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, leaving nearly 200 miners trapped underground, the company said Sunday.

The attack came almost exactly three years after Moscow launched its campaign to cripple Ukraine’s power grid – a strategy it has revived each winter in an effort to plunge the country into darkness and cold.

“On the eve of the heating season, the enemy once again struck Ukraine’s energy sector,” DTEK said in a statement on X.

“During the attack, 192 employees were underground. The evacuation of our colleagues to the surface continues.”

The company said the attack marks the fourth Russian attack on its coal facilities in the past two months.

All miners were later safely brought to the surface, according to the company’s report.

“All DTEK miners were successfully evacuated after the large-scale enemy attack. None of our colleagues were injured,” the statement said.

In a previous attack on Aug. 26,  a Russian attack on another DTEK mine killed one worker and injured three others.

On the same day, shelling near the town of Dobropillya cut power to several local mines, temporarily trapping hundreds of miners underground before they were rescued.

Coal plays a crucial role in fueling Ukraine’s thermal power plants, which provide heat and electricity to millions of homes. Following another consecutive attack on Ukraine’s energy grid on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the Kremlin is trying to turn Ukrainian territory into “an island of danger and suffering.”

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