Deep in the mountains: fines for failure to ensure safety in mines will be raised
Penalties for failure to ensure safety in coal mines are planned to be tightened — fines can range from 1/100 to 1/10 of the total amount of the company's revenue. Such a bill was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. Currently, the maximum amount of the sanction is 5 million rubles, and taking into account the amendments, the fine may amount to billions of rubles. Rostechnadzor, the author of the initiative, believes that due to low fines, companies neglect to ensure safe working conditions. About how the norm will work and whether it will help to avoid new emergencies, see the Izvestia article.
How will the fines increase
Fines for violations of industrial safety regulations in mines can drastically increase. The bill developed by Rostechnadzor was approved by a government commission on February 2, as sources in the Cabinet of Ministers told Izvestia.
"The purpose of the draft law is to improve existing mechanisms for ensuring compliance with industrial safety requirements through sanctions and preventive measures against officials and supervisors of organizations," the explanatory note says.
The initiative should raise the level of "legal awareness and discipline of the founders or participants of organizations, imposing personal responsibility for their decision-making."
Practice has shown, the authors of the bill write, that, despite the existence of sanctions, most often enterprises continue to operate facilities with violations that are dangerous to the lives of citizens, "and also carry significant corruption risks."
Currently, the maximum fine imposed on a legal entity for violating mandatory industrial safety requirements for preventing sudden emissions of coal, rock, gas, mine workings, and emergency protection requirements is up to 5 million rubles.
In 2022, Rostechnadzor imposed 819 fines totaling 62.4 million rubles, in 2023 — 869 fines totaling 78 million rubles, in 2024 — 976 fines totaling 81.7 million rubles.
"The data demonstrate the absence of positive dynamics and a reduction in the number of administrative offenses over the past three years," the authors of the amendments note. "This confirms the low effectiveness of fines for violations of industrial safety requirements."
The bill also expands the scope of administrative penalties for violations that have resulted in death or serious injury to a person in accidents at underground mining facilities. The sanctions will apply to offenders who mine any minerals.
The project eliminates a gap in the Code of Administrative Offenses, which lists the causes of accidents at mining facilities. It added an indication of a water break into the underground mine workings.
"One of the reasons for such a breakthrough may be the unsatisfactory quality of the development of project documentation without taking into account the factors that pose a danger during mining operations," the document says. — As well as improper implementation of production control over compliance with industrial safety requirements at hazardous facilities."
Such negligence led to the breakthrough of water from the pit bowl into the underground workings at the Mir mine of ALROSA in 2017 during diamond mining, when eight employees died. Or the collapse of the flooded rock mass of the bottom and sides of the quarry into the mining workings of the Pioneer mine of JSC Pokrovsky Mine during gold mining in 2024, when 13 people died.
Causes of accidents in mines
After an inspection at the Kuzbass mines in January 2026, six coal enterprises were temporarily banned there.
"Rostechnadzor inspectors have saved the lives and health of about 100 people who could have suffered as a result of potential accidents related to explosions of a dust—methane-air mixture," said Rostechnadzor spokesman Andrey Wil.
For example, work at the Oktyabrsky mine site was suspended for five days due to the dust and explosive condition of the mine workings. In addition, Rostechnadzor banned the operation of conveyor belts, as they were installed in violation of industrial safety requirements. The materials were submitted to the court.
There were also complaints about the Taldinskaya-Zapadnaya-1 mine. As follows from the Rostechnadzor protocol, they did not provide the mining with the estimated amount of air and did not take measures to control dynamic phenomena in it. The suspension period is six months.
Rostechnadzor has also suspended all work at the Listvyazhnaya mine. In November 2021, a major accident occurred there, killing 46 miners and five rescuers. The list of violations includes non—fulfillment of design decisions on the elimination and ventilation of mine workings, failure to comply with the measures of the act of investigating the causes of the incident, self-heating of coal in the depleted space of the insulated block in the ventilation shaft. The materials were submitted to the court.
The Berezovskaya mine did not have a developed and agreed supplement to the disaster management plan for 2026. The addition was necessary due to a change in the ventilation scheme of the mine workings. All work at the mine was suspended, except for life-support.
On January 28, the S.D. Tikhov mine received a protocol on the suspension of all work, except for life support. The main ventilation fan stopped there, which led to the contamination of the mine workings. Work at the V.D. Yalevsky mine was also stopped due to non—compliance with the documentation requirements for carrying out and securing mining work and part of the design solutions with fire protection.
A similar situation was revealed in July 2025, when the Siberian department of Rostechnadzor drew up 10 protocols on the temporary prohibition of activities.
What violations are most often detected?
After the amendments come into force, the fine for failure to ensure security will range from 1/100 to 1/10 of the company's revenue for the past year, said Ekaterina Kosareva, managing partner of the analytical agency VMT Consult.
"For small companies with annual revenue of up to 150 million rubles, the fine amount will be about 15 million rubles," she said. — Let's look at the largest market players, one of them has an annual revenue of almost 200 billion rubles in 2024. That is, the fine for the coal giant will be from 2 billion to 20 billion rubles. An average company with revenue in the region of 1 billion rubles will pay from 15 million to 100 million rubles.
According to Rostechnadzor, the most common violations in the field of industrial safety include: the use of faulty fire protection systems and mining equipment, lack of fire extinguishing equipment, dust suppression systems, explosion protection, gas control, ventilation of workings.
Another type of violation is the lack of systems for measuring methane concentrations in mines, personal protective equipment, and fire localization. Non-compliance with design, technical, technological, operational, accounting, control and organizational and administrative documentation prepared for a specific facility, taking into account its features, is also considered a violation.
— These violations can cause accidents of various kinds: collapses in a mine, explosions of a methane-air mixture, fires, — Ekaterina Kosareva added.
Tougher penalties should increase the economic motivation of large companies to invest in technical and organizational security, lawyer Ekaterina Alexandrovich believes.
— That is, it is planned to reduce the practice of "paying a fine as an expense", when fixed sanctions are incommensurable with the benefits of saving on security, — she believes.
However, there are certain risks for small businesses. For example, the possibility of formal bankruptcies or concealment of incidents, uncertainty in the calculation of revenue in order to reduce the size of sanctions, the expert concluded.
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