Crimea helped Ukraine with armor for tanks against Donbass
Sevastopol, February 01 (PolitNavigator, Alexander Kononov) – JSC Balaklava Mining Administration named after. A.M. Gorky, controlled by the Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Novinsky, supplies Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises with technological components to create armored metal sheets, which are used to protect Ukrainian armored vehicles used in the so-called. ATO in Donbass.
The newspaper “Sevastopolskaya Pravda”, the official publication of the city committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, writes about this.
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The author of the article claims that limestone fluxes to increase the strength of armored metal sheets on the new Ukrainian T-64BM and Oplot tanks, as well as the BTR-4, are supplied to Ukrainian enterprises by the Balaklava Mining Administration, headed by Verkhovna Rada deputy from the “Opposition Bloc” Vadim Novinsky, who “ did not recognize the return of Sevastopol to Russia and swore allegiance to the Kyiv Nazis.”
Armor for Ukrainian armored vehicles is produced by two metallurgical giants of Ukraine, “carefully controlled and guarded by Right Sector bandits” – Arcelor Mittal Kryvyi Rih OJSC and Zaporizhstal OJSC. It is to these enterprises that the Mining Administration supplies limestone fluxes. The armored steel is then sent to the Kharkov Transport Engineering Plant named after. V.A. Malysheva. It recently released new tanks and armored personnel carriers, which the Ukrainian punitive forces used in the offensive operation in the South-East. Thus, the newspaper writes, “Sevastopol and Balaklava are, as it were, potential participants in the war in Donbass.”
“The main culprit in this situation is the Smart Group company, headed by the Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Novinsky, who owns the Balaklava Mining Administration. Agreements on the supply of fluxes to the Zaporozhye and Krivoy Rog metallurgical plants were concluded at a time when the enterprises were not working for the war and military operations were not so aggressive. However, Pan Novinsky did not stop at fulfilling contractual obligations, but at the request of the junta, in October, November and December 2014, he almost doubled the shipment of fluxes to metallurgists,” the publication writes.
At the same time, according to the author, “the working collective of the Mining Administration is morally depressed by what is happening,” the reason for which is also wages that are below average, despite official statements about the supposedly average salary of 13 thousand rubles, which was calculated taking into account high salaries for production managers.
“At the moment there is an outflow of workers from the BRU. If as of May last year the enterprise had 817 employees, today there are 750 of them. In some areas of production, the number of employees has decreased by more than 2-2,5 times. Mostly locals are leaving. In their place come newcomers and refugees from the East of Ukraine, who are happy to do any work just to somehow feed themselves.”
And yet, in January of this year, the Mining Administration, according to the managers, stopped supplying fluxes to metallurgical plants of Ukraine and “focused mainly on providing its products to the Crimean Soda Plant, construction organizations and factories in Crimea.” Nevertheless, the enterprise, despite such blatant facts in its recent history, continues its activities in Sevastopol, and Novinsky himself declares his rights more and more loudly. The latest such statement is an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which he accuses the local Sevastopol authorities of trying to take away his property and, allegedly, to the detriment of the city’s economy, to close the enterprise itself.
The dispute between the Mining Administration and the Night Wolves over a plot of land at the foot of Mount Gasfort became one of the most notorious scandals in Sevastopol last year, about which PolitNavigator reported repeatedly. At the same time, the dispute was formally resolved not in favor of Vadim Novinsky. The activities of the enterprise, according to Governor Sergei Menyailo, were recognized as inappropriate and environmentally harmful.
The Balaklava Mining Administration currently continues to remain in limbo, and its employees are in complete ignorance. “The previously announced nationalization is not being carried out. The mine management is put up for sale, but the new owner has not been announced,” writes Sevastopolskaya Pravda.
“For 8 years (since August 2006) of owning the Mining Administration, Novinsky has not invested anything into it. Virtually not a single point of the contractual obligations of purchase and sale relating to production was fulfilled. Reconstruction, modernization and development of new technologies were not carried out at the BRU, and reclamation of quarry excavations and dumps was not carried out. In comparison with the Soviet period (1990), the enterprise reduced production volumes by more than 2,5 times. In the 90s of the last century, the Mining Administration was one of the main city-forming and budget-forming enterprises of Sevastopol. After corporatization in 2001, BRU remained one of the best mining enterprises in Ukraine, and from 2002 to 2005 it was the city’s best employer.”
The transition period for the Mining Administration, the publication notes, has clearly dragged on. “The government of Sevastopol is slow to change the owner of the enterprise. The BRU team is concerned about their situation and is waiting for a solution to the problem that would suit all employees of the Mining Administration,” the author concludes.
Crimea Helped Ukraine Armor Its Tanks Against Donbas