The Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine (NGPU) issued an urgent appeal Oct. 2 for “strengthened international solidarity with Ukrainian workers and trade unions amid the continuing escalation of Russian attacks.” This follows a similar appeal two days earlier by the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU), saying the devastating impact of Moscow’s invasion have “grown increasingly severe after more than four years.”
The NGPU appeal came in response to a Russian airstrike that hit the building of the DTEK coal company in Pavlohrad, injuring three people. The company runs Ukraine’s largest coal mine, in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The offices of both unions there, the NGPU and the Trade Union of Coal Industry Workers of Ukraine, were demolished. A small museum on the history of the independent union movement in Ukraine since 1989 was also destroyed.
“This was not simply an attack on a building. It was an attack on workers, their union organizations, as well as the history and identity of the independent trade union movement,” Mykhailo Volynets, chair of the NGPU, said.
Russian forces are systematically targeting workplaces, mines, coal- and iron-processing plants, and even buses and vans used to bring workers to and from their jobs. Last Feb. 1 a drone strike on a DTEK service bus killed 12 people, 10 of them miners returning home after their shift.
“Since the beginning of the war in 2014, Ukraine has lost 132 coal mines as a result of Russian aggression,” the NGPU says. Four waves of Russian airstrikes in August and September targeted Ukraine’s key metallurgical plants, forcing shutdowns in a further blow to the country’s economy.
Aerial bombing targeting the Kametstal steel plant in Kamianske in the Dnipropetrovsk region Sept. 5 killed five workers. Four airstrikes on the huge steel factory in Zaporizhzhia killed eight workers and injured 31. The mill, which employs 8,500 workers, had to suspend operations.
Over the past five weeks, strikes on the large mining and steelmaking complex of ArcelorMittal in Kryvyi Rih claimed the lives of five workers and injured 17. The extensive damage has led the bosses there to shut production down for the foreseeable future.
The Vladimir Putin regime has “intensified its deliberate attacks on Ukrainian cities, civilian infrastructure and workplaces,” the KVPU said. Kyiv, the capital and home to most of the country’s union headquarters, has been subjected to “constant bombardment in recent months.”
Moscow has launched over 2,100 missiles and 63,000 drones this year alone at residential blocks, hospitals, maternity wards, schools, shopping centers and other purely civilian targets. In the first seven months this year, 1,839 civilians were killed and 10,638 injured across the country.
According to the Free Trade Union of Rail Workers of Ukraine, the national rail network — a crucial lifeline for working people and the economy — has suffered 1,534 attacks in 2026 alone. “Missile, artillery, and drone strikes on railway infrastructure have killed approximately 60 railway workers and injured over 310,” the union said.
The KVPU called “for the Russian Federation to immediately and unconditionally cease its aggression and withdraw its troops from the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine.”