Coalminers in Russia (Image: GETTY)
Russia’s war economy is teetering on the brink of meltdown as its coal industry endures a ‘once in 30 year crisis’, hammered by Western sanctions, surging costs and collapsing global prices. One top Russian businessman captured the despair, admitting the sector was “really deep s***.”
Losses doubled to 225bIllion roubles (£2.1billion) in the first seven months of 2025, eclipsing 2024’s full-year total and turning the sector – a crucial lifeline for regional jobs and budgets – into the economy’s weakest link. While Moscow’s overall war machine is outlasting doomsday forecasts, coal’s implosion is signalling broader cracks: manufacturing contraction for a third straight month, ballooning corporate debt and a pivot to illicit looting in occupied territories.
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The entire industry is struggling, insiders have warned (Image: GETTY)
In 2023, coal raked in profits of nearly 375billion roubles (£3.45billion); now, it is dragging down GDP by under 1%, but its 140,000 direct jobs and funding for 30 mining regions are amplifying the socio-economic shockwaves.
Vladimir Putin conceded at a September forum in Kemerovo, Siberia’s coal hub known as Kuzbass: “Coal producers are having a tough time.”
The turmoil is reviving ghosts of the 1989 miners’ strikes shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 1998 hard-hat clashes which symbolised Russia’s deepest post-communist slump.
By September, 23 firms – 13% of the national total – had collapsed, with 53 more on the brink. Alexander Titov, senior analyst at Moscow’s Institute for Energy and Finance, says, “Mid-sized and smaller entities are those in the most danger.”
Miners in Russia’s Osinnikovskaya coal mine (Image: GETTY)
Thermal coal prices, key for electricity generation, have cratered to £70 a tonne – 78% off 2022 highs – amid China’s record production glut. Sanctions are severing Western markets, shoving exports to Asia at discounts hitting 60% below benchmarks in early 2022, easing to 20% today.
Firat Ergene, a senior analyst, says: “Russia’s producers continue to export at low margins or even at a loss, as scaling back would limit access to hard currency, currently a priority for Moscow, and risk social fallout in mining regions.”
Rail bottlenecks are exacerbating the rout: sanctioned oil cargoes now jam lines to ports, inflating freight to 90% of coal prices from 50% pre-war. Exports are trailing pre-invasion volumes despite booms to China, India and Vietnam.
Vladimir Korotin, chief executive of top-15 producer Russian Coal, warns: “The coal industry is going through its sharpest crisis since the 1990s.” He says earlier this year: “Thousands of jobs across a dozen Russian regions are at stake, as well as tax revenues.”
Even Vladimir Putin has said coal mining is in a difficult situation (Image: Getty)
Kuzbass, churning over half of its output, posted a 70.6billion-rouble (£647million) deficit in 2024, borrowing 36billion roubles (£330million) in the first half of 2025 alone. Nationwide, 19,000 coal posts have evaporated in that span, with 30 enterprises – yielding 30 million tonnes annually – staring down bankruptcy.
Steel-to-coal giant Mechel is mothballing a mine and trimming staff over the summer, its output plunging 28% in the first half. Full-year losses may triple to 300-500bn roubles (£2.8billion-4.65billion), swelling sector debt to 1.5trillion roubles (£14billion).
A watered-down May bailout, inked by Putin after finance ministry pushback, is doling out tax pauses, loan forbearance and cut-rate tariffs to the hardest-hit – shunning outright subsidies.
Energy minister Sergei Tsivilev, former Kuzbass governor and coal tycoon with close family connections to Putin, is championing the package, yet it barely scratches the surface.
Alex Thackrah, senior manager at a coal analytics firm, says: “Our forecast for global coal prices is bearish through to 2027, with some seasonal upside risk in the final quarter of 2025.” Sanctions are throttling Western equipment, sparking parts scavenging; more than half of 180 companies bled red ink last year.
The Kremlin is turning to plundered Ukrainian assets in occupied Donbas, where coal mines – long propped by £750miillion yearly Kyiv handouts – have withered without them. Russian backers are handing operations back to the state amid unviability.
The unnamed businessman told the Financial Times: “War is bad for most of the Russian businesses, if not all of them. But the coal sector is in really deep s***.”
Pavlo Kukhta, Ukraine’s former deputy economy minister, says: “The Donbas mining industry is old and relied heavily on state support from Kyiv, with subsidies reaching about £750million a year. When Russia took over, the subsidies dried up and now the industry is collapsing. Russia’s mining sector faces the same problems.”