Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

A symbol of loss in almost every Ukrainian kitchen

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“Salt gave us work and salt gave us life,” said Ruslan, a salt miner turned soldier.


Ruslan, 45, was working 1,000 feet below the earth in one of Europe’s largest salt mines when the Russians launched their full-scale attack. Almost a year later, he was fighting near the ruined city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine when the Russians took control of his nearby hometown, and the mine with it.


“I can’t even describe that feeling now,” he said. “Everything dear to me, everything I loved, worked for, and dreamed about was shattered in an instant.”


Soledar — which means gift of salt — fell in January, allowing the Russians to step up their assault on Bakhmut, about 40 miles to the south. The small town, with only 10,000 residents before the attack, also held a special place in Ukraine’s economy and history.


The mine provided more than 90 per cent of the country’s salt, and its operator, the state-owned company Artemsil, exported salt to more than 20 countries. Now Ukraine is relying on imported salt for the first time in its modern history.


But the country’s connection to its salt runs deeper than economics: It is a matter of national pride. Nearly every home had a package of salt from Soledar. Salt was among the first resources that made the eastern Donbas region famous for its mineral wealth.


The remnants of more than a century of mining were spectacular, too — excavations more than 1,000 feet deep, linked by more than 200 miles of tunnels, and caverns with cathedral-like roofs big enough to host orchestral concerts, a soccer match and even a hot-air balloon. The Soledar mine had become a tourist attraction, complete with a sanitarium built around the unproven health benefits of breathing salt-infused air.


Soon after the Russians launched their attack, Soledar came under withering bombardment. Ruslan, whose job was to ensure fresh air in the mines, recalled how they raced to get enough salt from the earth to replenish the national strategic stockpile before shelling forced the company to suspend operations in late April last year.


The salt disappeared from store shelves last summer, but 20 tonnes of stock that the government and the company managed to recover is now being sold within Ukraine to raise money for the war effort. Its packaging is based on a widely shared illustration by designer Artem Gusev that turned Artemsil’s salt-crystal emblem into a Ukrainian trident and replaced the word “salt” (“sil”) with “strength” (“mitts”).


When Artemsil became aware of the illustration, it saw the chance to “add a little bit of strength to every Ukrainian,” said its head of communications, Volodymyr Nizienko. According to the government platform handling the sales, United24, the campaign has raised more than $1.5 million.


The money cannot replace the more than 2,500 jobs lost, or rebuild what the bombardment destroyed, but it will buy drones for the Ukrainian military to attempt to win the town back.


Ruslan, who now goes by the call sign Miner, learned of the Ukrainian forces’ withdrawal from Soledar from friends as he was fighting in the forest belt north of Bakhmut, near the village of Pidhorodne.


He had a hard time putting into words the brutality of the Russian onslaught there, calling it “a nightmare.”


“Wagner group fighters were attacking us constantly; we didn’t have enough ammunition,” he said, speaking by telephone from a position in a different part of the country. His full name is being withheld for security reasons since he is still on active duty. “Not all of us survived, but we accomplished all the tasks and defended the place.”


He paused. “To be honest, it was hell,” he said. — New York Times


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