Abuse claims on the rise at mines in Eastern Europe, Central Asia — study

Human rights and environmental violation cases at mine operations across Eastern Europe and Central Asia rose substantially last year, a new report has found, raising concerns over the harmful tradeoffs involved in securing key minerals for the clean energy transition.

A new study by UK-based non-profit Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) on Tuesday identified as many as 270 allegations of abuse associated with mine development, extraction and processing (smelting and refining) in 13 of the 23 countries in the region.

These allegations were sourced from publicly reported incidents from media and NGOs, including those that have not been proven in court.

According to the BHRRC, the number of documented cases in 2024 was nearly three times higher than the 92 recorded the year prior, and represents a similar increase over the five-year average from 2019 to 2023.

Russia had the largest number of abuse allegations, with 105 or 39% of the region’s total. It was followed by Ukraine (48), Kazakhstan (43), Serbia (31), Bosnia and Herzegovina (10) and Georgia (10). Some, namely Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Serbia, had more allegations of abuse than during the previous five years combined.

Of all 19 minerals documented by the report, copper was associated with the highest number (77) of abuse allegations, constituting 29% of all recorded cases and involving eight countries.

The BHRRC report also found occupational health and safety violations (115) to be the top human rights issue, accounting for 85% of all issues experienced by workers. This was followed by workplace deaths (47) and personal health issues (30). Half of workplace deaths recorded took place in Russia (23) and over a quarter (14) in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, violations of environmental safety standards (43) accounted for 38% of all allegations affecting communities, followed by air pollution at 27% and soil and water pollution at 20% each.

Russian company United Company RUSAL — owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and sanctioned by the European Union — was linked to 31 allegations of abuse, nearly twice as many as any other company. Georgia hosted mines (Chiatura) with the highest number of allegations (10).

These findings raise alarms over the protection of workers and the environment in the region as the EU ramps up efforts to extract and process critical minerals to support its climate goals.

Speaking to The Guardian on Tuesday, BHRRC researcher and co-author Ella Skybenko stressed that “we must not choose between climate progress and protection of people and ecosystems.”