Earlier this month, the area’s main mine operator, Pokrovsk Coal, which employed 10,000 before the war, suspended operations.
It was Ukraine’s last producer of coking coal, a key component in the production of steel.
Now some of its shuttered facilities in the village of Udachne are being used by San Sanych’s brigade.
Hills of rock dump offer soldiers a vantage point over the surrounding terrain, while the caverns, shafts and basements provide underground safety.
But he was unsure how long they would have enough men or ammunition to hold on.
‘Grew up in these mines’
Life has long revolved around mining in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union that Russia claimed in 2022 to have annexed from Kyiv.
With the closure of the Pokrovsk mines, many workers relocated, but others were left in limbo in mostly deserted villages just a few kilometres from the front lines.