By Galina Korol | 2026-06-05

A Moscow-based company linked to Russia's state defense conglomerate Rostec has begun geological exploration of one of the world's largest manganese deposits located in Russian-occupied Ukraine. The move is a window into a systematic effort to absorb Ukraine's strategic mineral wealth into Russia's wartime economy.

The asset in question is the Velyko-Tokmatske deposit in the Zaporizhzhia region. According to a mining industry source cited by the Russian business outlet Kommersant, it ranks among the top five largest manganese deposits in the world, holding approximately 1.7 billion tons -- enough to sustain mining for a century.

In February 2026, Russian company Reale Engineering Invest obtained a license to develop the deposit and began geological exploration. A mining and processing plant designed for 3,000 employees is reportedly under construction nearby.

Russia imports more than 90% of its manganese. The head of the Russian-installed occupation administration in Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, stated plainly that ferromanganese is essential for the Russian defense industry, which currently sources it from South Africa, Brazil and Gabon. Manganese is also critical for producing steel and ferroalloys. Russia's only domestic manganese mining site is in Bashkiria; its own largest deposits are far smaller than Ukraine's.

A legal fiction, not a license

Irina Suprun, founder and CEO of Geological Investment Group and an expert on mineral resources, called it "a systemic attempt to legalize the misappropriation of Ukraine's strategic resources through pseudo-legal mechanisms." The licenses Russia issues, she told Kontur, grant no legitimate rights to the mineral resources or their extraction.

International law is unambiguous. Article 55 of the Hague Regulations prohibits an occupying power from depleting the resources of seized territories. A ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Congo v. Uganda case established that illegal exploitation of natural resources in occupied territory constitutes internationally wrongful misappropriation. Suprun said that precedent applies here.

Responsibility extends beyond states.

"Since the Nuremberg trials, the world has seen the criminal prosecution of business representatives for participating in the plundering of occupied territories," she noted.

For any foreign company, working with raw materials from occupied Ukrainian territory is no longer a reputational concern alone.

"It is a losing asset with long-term legal consequences -- ranging from sanctions to future criminal claims," Suprun said.

A deposit that could be lost twice

Political scientist Konstantin Batozsky, director of the Azov Development Agency, is skeptical the project will get far. He described Russian plans as "pretty talk," noting that the ore is lean in manganese content and would require a processing plant built from scratch. The nearest power sources -- hydroelectric plants on the Dnieper River, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and major thermal facilities -- are either destroyed or inaccessible. Russia blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant itself. No railway reaches the deposit. Active shelling and minefields make industrial activity effectively impossible, he told Kontur.

But Suprun warns the more serious threat is geological, not logistical. Even partial, exploratory extraction can cause permanent damage. The deposit is geologically complex, with phosphorous ores that vary in quality and require precise sampling. Selective mining -- targeting only the richest sections -- would leave fragmented, depleted reserves that remain costly to develop even at high global manganese prices.

Uncontrolled drilling also risks disrupting the hydrogeological regime. Nearby flooded mines compound that instability. Aggressive water drainage could cause seam deformation and permanent loss of access to portions of the reserves.

There is also a subtler form of destruction. Over decades, Ukraine accumulated extensive core samples, geological documentation and modeling data for this deposit.

"In the modern mining industry, this data is a distinct asset that often costs as much as the license itself," Suprun said. Uncontrolled interference could destroy it permanently.

Belarus's role in the scheme

The Velyko-Tokmatske case is part of a broader pattern. Since 2022, Belarusian state-owned enterprises have been importing kaolin -- a clay mineral essential to ceramics -- from occupied Donetsk.

According to Vladimir Zhigar of the BelPol organization, primary recipients include tile and sanitary ware manufacturers JSC Keramin and JSC Berezastroymaterialy. Belarus has virtually no domestic high-quality kaolin, historically relying on Ukrainian supply.

Zhigar told Kontur that the supplies move through Nika Trade Invest, a firm registered in occupied Donetsk, and travel by rail to Belarus. In 2022–2023, he said, Lukashenko ordered officials to explore transferring Ukrainian clay deposits near Druzhkivka, formerly held by Ukrainian company Vesco PJSC, directly to Belarusian enterprises. The logic was straightforward: if the territory is occupied, why purchase kaolin through intermediaries when you can control the deposit?

Suprun described the overall scheme as "a model of state-scale industrial looting," in which Ukraine's natural resources are absorbed into the military-industrial and civilian economies of the aggressor state and its ally -- without any legal foundation.