The minister on the Antiterrorist operation and the occupied territories Vladimir Kistion said that Ukraine annually bought some 9 million tons of coal in Donbass.
“This coal is mined by Ukrainian companies, registered on the Ukrainian territory and paying taxes to the state budget”, he added.
Earlier the minister of energy and coal industry Igor Nasalik announced, that most of the energy companies and thermal power plants were privately owned.
“So all of them carry out their own commercial activities on coal purchases from any available sources”, he said.
According to him, to decrease the dependency on anthracite coals from the ATO zone, the ministry decided to modernize energy-generating companies and buy anthracite coal from other sources. (Ukrainian metal)