MOSCOW – Russia annually supplies about 10 million tonnes of coal to Ukraine and expects to retain that market, Russian Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky told reporters on August 21.
“There are no restrictions on Russian coal supplies to Ukraine. We are interested in preserving this sales market. We supply 10 million tonnes a year, mainly coking coal,” he said when asked for comment on the first shipment of U.S. coal to Ukraine.
Russia supplies coal to Ukraine under contracts between private companies.
“I don’t think that this will prove to be significant. We supply coking coal to Ukraine for the steel industry. And Ukraine received energy coal from the LPR and DPR [the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics respectively]. Now they are in a state of power starvation; they themselves imposed a blockade on supply of coal from there. They have to compensate that with supplies from other countries,” he said, adding that the coal from the U.S. is energy coal, which Russia has never supplied to Ukraine.
