Overview

• Ukrainian coal mines, facing a severe staff shortage due to the war with Russia, have started employing women to work underground for the first time in history.
• Over a hundred women have taken up the offer to work in the mines, with some working as technicians servicing the small electric trains used to transport workers.
• Ukraine's largest private energy company, DTEK, which owns the mines, reports that nearly 3,000 of its 20,000 mineworkers are currently fighting in the war.
• Of the thousand miners from one particular mine and its nearby twin enterprise who went to fight, 42 have been killed.
• Despite the challenging work conditions, the women express a sense of duty to support those who have gone to fight and plan to continue working in the mines even after the war.