London – The search for President Donald Trump from an agreement to access Ukrainian mineral resources has altered the United States transatlantic ties in recent weeks, with the disturbing of the White House and European partners and Ukrainian partners with a boost for future profits.
Trump praised on Tuesday the draft of the agreement as a “very big problem”, one that said he will grant kyiv “military teams and the right to fight.”
Several estimates suggest that there could be hundreds of thousands of millions, maybe even billion, for the value of rare earth minerals in the Ukrainian soil. Among them are believed to be significant lithium, titanium, copper, nickel, cobalt, graphite and uranium deposits.
Just before the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, launched the large -scale invasion of Ukraine of his nation in February 2022, the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Svetlana Grincuk, said that his nation was one of “approximately 5% of all” critical raw materials “of the world.”
President Donald Trump, the Oval Office in Washington, on February 25, 2025 and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 24, 2025.
Getty Images/Canadian Press through AP
However, there is a shortage of information about the scope and accessibility of Ukrainian mineral resources.
“Unfortunately, there is no modern evaluation” of rare earth reserves in Ukraine, S of Roman Opimakh, the former general director of the Ukrainian Geological Service said.& P Global Commodity Insights this month. “And there is still restriction to make this information public.” Current estimates are based on mapping methods and exploration of the Soviet era, he added.
In fact, the section of the State Website of Geology and Ukraine that details the possible reserves of the country is not accessible. “According to the legal requirements, open access to this section of the site is limited for the period of martial law,” says a message.
The resources that are there will not necessarily be easy to achieve, Gracelin Baskaran and Meredith Schwartz, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote this month.
The financial yields of the possible Trump agreement are “unlikely to be consistent in the medium term given the investment barriers,” they wrote.
The war has eliminated the “essential” mining infrastructure, they added, as well as the energy generation capacities necessary to feed intensive mining projects. “There must be a significant construction of energy infrastructure” to begin the exploration or production of minerals, “said the authors.
The development of a single mine can cost up to $ 4 million, said Oleksandr Vodoviz, the head of the Executive Director’s office at Metinvest Group. Develop an installation similar to the coke coal plant in Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, which is the largest company in Ukraine, would require around $ 10 billion.
Persistent security risks can also deter the required investment. “While Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy can reach a peace agreement, the threat of a greater conflict and the expropriation of the Earth will be given the nature of a long time of the conflict,” Baskaran and Schwartz said.
The geographical propagation of the Minerals of Ukraine complicates the security image. Many concentrations of the most valuable resources are in the east of the country, even in territory currently occupied by the Russian forces and throughout the devastated front line, within the reach of Russian weapons.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, apparently aware of the global attractiveness of the natural resources of Ukraine, quoted them in his “Victoria Plan” in October 2024.
A woman turns by bicycle with her dog as bucket excavators, rare earth materials on February 25, 2025 in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine.
Libkos/Getty Images
The fourth of his five points observed Ukrainian natural resources as “our growth opportunity”, and offered his investment opportunities for strategic partners in this field. This point also had a secret annex that was only shared with designated partners.
The United States is ready to lead the position of foreign investment. A senior Ukrainian official told ABC News on Tuesday that the two parties had agreed the terms of the proposed agreement.
Trump did not confirm that the United States would have agreed, instead, told journalists that he had heard that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Washington, DC, to finish the compact on Friday. “It’s fine for me if I would like,” Trump said.
The President has framed the Mineral Agreement as a means to recover the American war aid to Ukraine, claiming, without offering evidence, which the United States has contributed with $ 350 billion to kyiv for three years.
The agreement prevents the creation of an US-UKRrainia Reconstruction Investment Fund for joint property, through which resources can be property and developed.
A source from the Ukrainian government told ABC News that the latest version of the agreement does not include the initial demand of the United States of access to resources worth $ 500 billion, nor the opening position that the United States would completely have the proposed investment fund.
It also seems that the resources of the agreement do not cover resources that currently contribute to the Ukrainian budget, which means that there is no oil and gas, or probably most of the country’s mineral resources.
Carl Bildt, former Swedish prime minister and co -chair of the European Foreign Affairs Council, told BBC News that the mineral agreement seems a “secondary show” and designed mainly to “keep Mr. Trump happy.”
“But it will not give a lot of money to the United States, and I don’t see that it has any materially economic effect for many years,” said Bildt.
Ukraine requires security guarantees as part of the agreement, although ABC News understands that the provision is not part of the draft agreement. Zelenskyy and Trump are expected to discuss the issue when the old one travels to Washington, DC on Friday.
ABC News’ Will Gretsky contributed to this report.
