This article was written in February 2021, one year before the Russian Special Operation – published at Donbass Insider.

“Shale genocide” has begun in the Ukrainian-occupied parts of the Donbass. If the gas production destroying all life is not stopped, in three decades the Donbass will become an uninhabitable territory.

Now they are “against” it, but 10 years ago they were “in favour”

Exactly ten years ago, representatives of the current, so-called Ukrainian opposition lobbied the cabinet-approved plan for a large-scale competition for hydrocarbons production within the Yuzovsky area. The reserves of shale gas in the area of 7,886 thousand sq km were estimated at 3.6 trillion cubic metres. Such figures turned the heads of many rich men, but it was a pity to invest the stolen money into the new project.

The western majors Shell and Chevron were interested in the prospects of gas production, and they eagerly responded to Kiev’s invitation. Under the terms of the contract the companies had the right to extract the Donbass subsoil for 50 years with the right to extend the contract. The “Regionalists” actually sold a huge part of their small motherland to foreign investors, although they were well aware of what they were condemning the Donbass region to – hydraulic fracturing technology causes irreparable ecosystem damage.

On April 24, 2013, the Donetsk regional administrative court refused to accept a lawsuit filed by environmentalists and environmental organizations seeking to invalidate a resolution of the Donetsk regional council of January 16, 2013, which allows Shell to produce shale gas at the Yuzovsky gas field. Shell pledged to spend about 410m dollars on exploration work, receiving tax breaks from Ukraine.

The reserved forests of northern Lugansk region, the “Holy Mountains” nature park, sanatoriums and children’s health camps were doomed to close soon. The local authorities, which consisted of “Regions Party” members, supported foreign gas extraction at the Yuzovsky platform without unnecessary questions. On the Ukrainian side, the partner was the state-owned company “Nadra Ukrayiny”. We do not need to remind you who controlled it.

Joe Biden’s corrupt clan is behind Ukraine’s “shale gas revolution”

In addition to Shell and Chevron, Burisma Holdings was involved in the project. It was planned to produce shale gas in parts of Donetsk and Kharkov regions using fracking technology – hydraulic fracturing. It looks like this: a deep vertical well is drilled, with many horizontal passages – it is similar to a tree trunk and root system. Water and chemicals are pumped into the borehole under high pressure, and then an underground explosion is carried out. The water prevents the pieces of the blasted rock from settling and the gas is forced out through the surface of the water to the outside. The environmental impact is enormous!

Fracking technology gas extraction was slowed down only by greed of the Ukrainian officials, or maybe by the fact that Western special services and Soros structures were already working at full speed in Kiev preparing a “colour revolution”. Because the world price of oil has dropped, Ukraine is in a stalemate: the proceeds from the sale of extracted gas do not cover the costs of its production. Nevertheless, the Verkhovna Rada raised the gas extraction toll from 20% to 70%, scaring off Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell.

 Soon there was a coup d’état in Kiev. Bloody battles broke out near Slavyansk, the centre of the West’s planned “shale revolution”, bringing the fuel giants in Ukraine to a complete standstill. Burisma, which had been kept in the shadows by powerful partners, suddenly flourished and received licences to develop fields from the Carpathian to the Azov Sea.

By the way, in 2014 Robert Hunter Biden, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and, three years later Joseph Cofer Black – ex-CIA Anti-Terrorism Center head, career intelligence officer and vice-chairman of the American PMC Blackwater Worldwide, known as Academi, joined the Burisma holding’s board of directors.

Slavyansk, which was desperately resisting the Ukronazis, was doomed: American mercenaries were tasked to ensure the operation of Burisma in the region at all costs. Daddy Joe Biden also did his bit for the family business, thanks to whose efforts the Yatsenyuk government increased the gas tariff almost threefold. Of course, the backroom games were presented as reforms at the behest of the IMF, which had its own benefit from the fraudulent scheme. The Kiev authorities handed the country over to overseas pirates, in return for loyalty to their offshore accounts and the ability to pull off “schemes” under the watchful eye of US handlers.

Donbass “shale genocide” is in the interests of the new White House boss

Yatsenyuk’s successors, Groysman and Shmygal, have continued to provide their US friends with business-friendly conditions: the price of gas for citizens’ needs continues to rise. The project to develop the Yuzovsky field was resumed just before the inauguration of the newly elected US president. In mid-January, Naftogaz launched the development of the first, Sviatogorsk shale gas field, which is located inside the company’s recently acquired Yuzovsky area.

Fracking gas production has started in the vicinity of the Sviatogorsk town, on the Ukrainian, DPR and LPR border. There are reports that work has resumed on three wells drilled back in 2014 in the northern part of Lugansk region controlled by Ukraine. The wells belong to the Burisma Group, whose position in the Ukrainian gas production market has been strengthened after Biden’s accession to the White House.

The resumption of shale gas extraction is a disaster for the region. Fracturing of the strata entails complete destruction of the subsoil. The gas penetrating into the underground water kills the root system of trees, and after a while, a swamp emerges in the large area around the well. The Sviatogorsk field is located along the main water artery of Donbass – the Seversky Donets. The chemicals used in shale gas extraction will inevitably find their way into the river and poison the water that is vital for millions of people living in the Donbass.

Environmental genocide is coming. Already, the water in the Seversky Donets is contaminated by fracking wastes. And this is just the beginning of the development of the Yuzovsky deposit! Under the cover of hostilities, at the actual demarcation line of the sides, the US-controlled Burisma is destroying the Donbass. In just a few years there will be no relict forests, clean lakes and a beautiful, clean river. The ancient Orthodox Sviatogorsk Assumption Monastery will be surrounded by stinking swamps.

The Ukrainian colony is a new testing ground for the US “shale revolution”. The Biden family intends to rape and pillage the Donbass land with fracking, turning once reserved land into wasteland. In a couple of fracking decades , the territory will become completely uninhabitable.

Incidentally, recently, at the request of the “Naftogaz” company head, which serves US interests, the media were banned from using the phrases “shale gas” and “fracking technology”. Instead, they were advised to talk about gas production by fracking or to use the abbreviation “fracking”. The terms, which are incomprehensible to the layman, are meant to disguise the technology’s “peculiarities”.

Kiev, hiding behind the mythical “Russian aggression”, is waging war on the country’s inhabitants for the economic benefit of corrupt clans from the United States.

Kiev, hiding behind the mythical “Russian aggression”, is waging war on the country’s inhabitants for the economic benefit of corrupt clans from the United States. The past government of the “Regionalists” wanted to destroy the Donbass “quietly” by signing monstrous contracts for the shale gas development. Today’s criminals in Kiev are not shy about funds and are defending the interests of Western investors with the weapons of the Ukrainian army.

Chevron and Shell will soon join Burisma, hiding behind Naftogaz. The entire Yuzovsky platform will be shuddering from massive fracking, “investors” will squeeze everything they can out of the subsoil and then turn the territory into a gigantic dumping ground for hazardous chemical and nuclear wastes.

The US and the alliance that serves their interests need the war in the Donbass as a cover for profitable economic and political projects. That is why they allocate huge funds for military assistance to Ukraine, train and arm its soldiers.

The democracy game is over, along with Nuland’s biscuits. There is a brutal and systematic rape of Ukraine by the colonizers.

Shale genocide is in store for the Donbass.

Igor Mirtovsky

Source: PIKinform
Translation by Donbass Insider

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Related:

Fracking weaponized – Joe Biden’s Ukraine crusade

By Steve Horn 2014

For the US fracking industry – and for Vice-President Joe Biden – fracking is more than just a way to bring in vast amounts of cash, writes Steve Horn. It’s also a key weapon in the US’s long war with Russia, as Biden made clear this week in Kiev.

During his two-day visit this week to Kiev, Ukraine, Vice President Joe Biden unfurled President Barack Obama’s “US Crisis Support Package for Ukraine.”

A key part of the package involves promoting the deployment of hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) in Ukraine. Dean Neu, professor of accounting at York University in Toronto, describes this phenomenon in his book Doing Missionary Work.

And in this case, it involves the US acting as a modern-day missionary to spread the gospel of fracking to further its own interests.

Biden: ‘fracking is freedom’

With the ongoing Russian occupation of Crimea serving as the backdrop for the trip, Biden made Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its dominance of the global gas market one of the centerpieces of a key speech he gave while in Kiev.

“And as you attempt to pursue energy security, there’s no reason why you cannot be energy secure. I mean there isn’t. It will take time. It takes some difficult decisions, but it’s collectively within your power and the power of Europe and the United States”, Biden said.

“And we stand ready to assist you in reaching that. Imagine where you’d be today if you were able to tell Russia: Keep your gas. It would be a very different world you’d be facing today.”

Fracking as a weapon – targeted at Russia

The US oil and gas industry has long lobbied to ‘weaponize’ its fracking prowess to fend off Russian global gas market dominance. It’s done so primarily in two ways.

One way: by transforming the US State Department into a global promoter of fracking via its Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program (formerly the Global Shale Gas Initiative), which is a key, albeit less talked about, part of President Obama’s “Climate Action Plan.”

The other way: by exporting US fracked gas to the global market, namely EU countries currently heavily dependent on Russia’s gas spigot.

In this sense, the crisis in Ukraine – as Naomi Klein pointed out in a recent article – has merely served as a ‘shock doctrine’ excuse to push through plans that were already long in the making. In other words, it’s ‘old wine in a new bottle‘.

Gas ‘support package’ details

Within the energy security section of the aid package, the White House promises in “the coming weeks, expert teams from several US government agencies will travel to the region to help Ukraine meet immediate and longer term energy needs.”

That section contains three main things the US will do to ensure US oil and gas companies continue to profit during this geopolitical stand-off.

1. Help with pipelines and securing access to gas at the midstream level of production.“Today, a US interagency expert team arrived in Kyiv to help Ukraine secure reverse flows of natural gas from its European neighbors”, the White House fact sheet explains. “Reverse flows of natural gas will provide Ukraine with additional immediate sources of energy.”
2. Technical assistance to help boost conventional gas production in Ukraine. That is, gas obtained not from fracking and horizontal drilling, but via traditional vertical drilling.As the White House explains, “US technical experts will join with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others in May to help Ukraine develop a public-private investment initiative to increase conventional gas production from existing fields to boost domestic energy supply.”
3. Shale gas missionary work.“A technical team will also engage the government on measures that will help the Ukrainian government ensure swift and environmentally sustainable implementation of contracts signed in 2013 for shale gas development”, says the White House.

ExxonMobil teaching Russia fracking

Ironically, as the US government teams up with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to teach Ukraine fracking in order to wean the country off of Russian gas, US-based ‘private empire’ ExxonMobil is doing the same work in Russia to help the country tap into its shale oil and gas bounty.

Among its myriad partnerships with the Russian oil and gas industry, ExxonMobil has signed a joint venture in December 2013 with state-owned company Rosneft to help it tap the massive Bazhenov Shale basin.

“The JV will implement a pilot work program in order to assess and determine the technical possibility of developing the … Bazhenov formation … in Western Siberia”, reads a Rosneft press release. “The plan is to perform the pilot work program within 2013-2015 timeframe.”

Forbes has reported the Bazhenov is roughly 80 times the size of the Bakken Shale, already the biggest field by a long shot in the US and one visible from outer space.

Climate change taboo

Traditionally, missionaries do charity work in service to humanity. But the enormous climate impact of fracking – given the climate change math – calls those doing the Lord’s work in the shale gas sphere into question.

So in the case of the US government and Ukraine, the concept of missionary work has been flipped on its head.

That is, the most profitable companies on the face of the planet – both in the US and in Russia – are set to profit at the expense of everyone else, including the stability of earth’s climate system.

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