“Salt gave us work and salt gave us life,” mentioned Ruslan, a salt miner turned soldier.
Ruslan, 45, was working 1,000 toes under the earth in one in all Europe’s largest salt mines when the Russians launched their full-scale invasion. Nearly a yr later, he was preventing close to the ruined metropolis of Bakhmut in jap Ukraine when the Russians took management of his close by hometown, and the mine with it.
“I can’t even describe that feeling now,” he mentioned when requested to recall how he felt when the city, Soledar, was misplaced. “The whole lot pricey to me, every little thing I liked, labored for, and dreamed about was shattered right away.”
Soledar — which suggests present of salt — fell in January, permitting the Russians to step up their assault on Bakhmut, about 40 miles to the south. The small city, with solely 10,000 residents earlier than the assault, additionally held a particular place in Ukraine’s financial system and historical past.
The mine offered greater than 90 p.c of the nation’s salt, and its operator, the state-owned firm Artemsil, exported salt to greater than 20 international locations. Now Ukraine is counting on imported salt for the primary time in its trendy historical past.
However the nation’s connection to its salt runs deeper than economics: It’s a matter of nationwide pleasure. Almost each dwelling had a package deal of salt from Soledar. Salt was among the many first sources that made the jap Donbas area well-known for its mineral wealth.
The remnants of greater than a century of mining have been spectacular, too — excavations greater than 1,000 toes deep, linked by greater than 200 miles of tunnels, and caverns with cathedral-like roofs sufficiently big to host orchestral live shows, a soccer match and even a hot-air balloon. The Soledar mine had develop into a vacationer attraction, full with a sanitarium constructed across the unproven well being advantages of respiratory salt-infused air.
Quickly after the Russians launched their invasion, Soledar got here beneath withering bombardment. Ruslan, whose job was to make sure contemporary air within the mines, recalled how they raced to get sufficient salt from the earth to replenish the nationwide strategic stockpile earlier than shelling pressured the corporate to droop operations in late April final yr.
The salt disappeared from retailer cabinets final summer time, however 20 tons of inventory that the federal government and the corporate managed to get well is now being bought inside Ukraine to lift cash for the conflict effort. Its packaging is predicated on a broadly shared illustration by the designer Artem Gusev that turned Artemsil’s salt-crystal emblem right into a Ukrainian trident and changed the phrase “salt” (“sil”) with “energy” (“mits”).
When Artemsil turned conscious of the illustration, it noticed the prospect to “add somewhat little bit of energy to each Ukrainian,” mentioned its head of communications, Volodymyr Nizienko. In line with the federal government platform dealing with the gross sales, the marketing campaign has raised greater than $1.5 million.
The cash can not change the greater than 2,500 jobs misplaced, or rebuild what the bombardment destroyed, however it is going to purchase drones for the Ukrainian army to try to win the city again.
The destruction of Soledar was a part of Russia’s broader focusing on of Ukraine’s financial system. The occupation of Enerhodar — a city whose title means present of power, dwelling to Europe’s largest nuclear energy plant — helped the Kremlin flip Ukraine from an power exporter into a rustic struggling to fulfill its personal energy wants.
Russian occupation of lands used to provide wheat, corn and sunflower oil — usually Ukraine’s high exports — has devastated the agricultural sector. The wreckage of Azovstal, the Mariupol plant the place Ukrainian troopers held out for months, is a testomony to Russia’s decimation of the nation’s metal trade. And port blockades throttle what stays.
Earlier than Soledar fell, the city’s annihilation was principally full.
“The whole lot has been utterly destroyed; there’s virtually no life left,” President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned in early January. “The entire land close to Soledar is roofed with corpses of occupiers and scars from strikes. That is what insanity seems to be like.”
Ruslan, who now goes by the decision signal Miner, discovered of the Ukrainian forces’ withdrawal from Soledar from pals as he was preventing within the forest belt north of Bakhmut, close to the village of Pidhorodne.
He had a tough time placing into phrases the brutality of the Russian onslaught there, calling it “a nightmare.”
“Wagner group fighters have been attacking us continuously; we didn’t have sufficient ammunition,” he mentioned, talking by phone from a place in a special a part of the nation. His full title is being withheld for safety causes since he’s nonetheless on lively obligation. “Not all of us survived, however we achieved all of the duties and defended the place.”
He paused. “To be trustworthy, it was hell,” he mentioned.
It was the pinnacle of the mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who launched a video on Jan. 12 trumpeting the autumn of Soledar — probably the most important Russian territorial acquire in months. He claimed he was filming his victory speech within the salt caverns.
The symbolism was potent, and contested by the Ukrainians: Officers and employees from Artemsil mentioned the backdrop regarded like a close-by gypsum mine.
Mr. Prigozhin additionally sought to attribute army significance to the mines, which have been rumored to carry an arsenal relationship to Soviet occasions, saying he hoped to utilize each saved weapons and the tunnel community.
The British army intelligence company mentioned Ukrainian and Russian officers have been more likely to be involved about how the opposite facet might use the huge community of tunnels to their benefit.
“Either side are probably involved that they might be used for infiltration behind their traces,” it mentioned in an announcement.
Ukrainian officers declined to touch upon any potential weapons cache. However Viktoria Skrypnyk, the chief geologist for Artemsil, mentioned when Soledar fell that the usage of the mines for army functions was unlikely: The shafts are too deep and slim to simply transfer army tools out and in.
Ruslan — who as soon as guided excursions via the caverns — mentioned that he had not communicated with anybody in Soledar because the Russians arrived, as a result of there was nobody left.
The handful of civilians who remained, he mentioned, have been both too previous to maneuver or had regarded ahead to the Russian arrival as a result of they supported Moscow. Any others, he mentioned, had most likely been killed.
Ruslan’s spouse, son and daughter have been evacuated from Soledar earlier than the Russians got here, and the household doesn’t know when it is going to return. A few of his pals have given up on the considered going dwelling, constructing new lives in new cities.
“I can not let it go,” Ruslan mentioned. “I do know that we’ll win it again, we’ll come again there after the victory, we’ll restore every little thing and can reside on.”
Within the meantime, he mentioned, his household holds onto a single bag of salt from Soledar, saving it for holidays and the day they will go dwelling once more.
Anna Lukinova contributed reporting.
