When Aleksander Maryinych enters a metal cage and descends into darkness with dozens of other miners for his six-hour shifts, the concussive thumps of an artillery war are replaced by the clatter of rail carts and the grind of machinery carving deep into the earth.
Plumes of dust and smoke from Russian bombardment are exchanged for clouds of fine coal dust, seeping into the crevices of the miners’ skin and staining their eyebrows a signature black.
“When I’m down in the mine, I forget about the war because I have to concentrate on other things,” said Maryinych, 33, a drill operator at a private coal mine run by the DTEK energy company in the Dobrapil district,
