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- The subsoil is being lynched: what will the negotiations between the United States and Ukraine on the resource deal lead to?
The subsoil is being lynched: what will the negotiations between the United States and Ukraine on the resource deal lead to?
Ukraine and the United States are resuming negotiations on a controversial mining agreement. A representative delegation will travel to Washington on April 11-12 for this purpose. At the same time, the American media write that the deal could lead to the final ruin of Kiev. Izvestia investigated the situation.
The Ukrainian delegation is flying to the USA
Ukrainian negotiators will visit Washington on April 11-12 to discuss the details of the minerals agreement. It is known that the delegation will include the Deputy Ministers of Economy and Justice, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and an international law firm. "Higher—level officials are not required yet, because at this stage we are talking about technical consultations," sources in Kiev say.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Sviridenko said that face-to-face negotiations were needed because the parameters of the agreement could not be discussed online. "Now we have a document that reflects the position of the legal group of the US Treasury Department. This is not the final version, not a joint position. We are focused on ensuring that the final project meets our interests," she said.
It is also emphasized that one of the main topics of the negotiations will be the structure and functioning of the joint fund, which will deal with mining and income distribution. "Analysts who have reviewed the leaked document have stated that Kiev's participation is likely to be minimal — Ukraine hopes to challenge this point," Bloomberg's interlocutors noted.
In turn, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that a Ukrainian delegation was expected in Washington. According to him, the agreement is important for both sides, as well as for the peace process. "I hope that we will be able to sign this document and return to a mutually beneficial situation," he noted. According to a number of reports, at the end of March, the negotiators also held preliminary consultations with lawyers, discussing the American version of the document online.
"Otherwise we are stupid"
The topic of Ukrainian minerals appeared on the world agenda last fall. At that time, the election campaign was in full swing in the United States, and Donald Trump relentlessly criticized the Biden administration, as well as Vladimir Zelensky and his team. So, in one of his speeches, the Republican said that the Ukrainian president turned out to be the best huckster in history, because after each trip to Washington, he received $60 billion from the Democrats. If he comes to power, Trump promised to stop this practice.
Against this background, Zelensky presented his so-called victory plan, which was supposed to convince Western allies to continue providing assistance to Kiev. One of the points stated that the Ukrainian subsoil allegedly contains resources worth trillions of dollars, especially valuable deposits of uranium, titanium, lithium and other metals. Zelensky then proposed to Washington to conclude an agreement on joint protection, investment and development of deposits.
The idea of the Ukrainian side was to ensure the preservation of military assistance in the future and to obtain some security guarantees. But the Trump administration took a completely different approach to the idea. After his inauguration, the US president-elect said that Washington had already spent $500 billion on Ukraine in previous years and it should use its resources to compensate for these costs. "After that, we won't feel stupid, otherwise we're stupid," Trump said.
As a result, a bilateral agreement was developed, the document assumed that Kiev and Washington would create a joint fund, Ukraine would send 50% of future mining revenues to it, the United States would contribute, while Kiev did not receive security guarantees. Observers noted that there were few specifics and many general phrases in the text, and it remained unclear, for example, how the fund would be managed, who would spend the funds, and what they would spend them on.
Robbery and red lines
On February 28, Trump and Zelensky met at the White House to sign an agreement. "We are looking forward to the opportunity to start digging to get some of the rare earth metals," the American president said at the time. The negotiations, however, escalated into a heated exchange. Trump, along with US Vice President Jay Dee Vance, argued that the war in Ukraine should be stopped through diplomacy, but Zelensky opposed the truce because Russia would allegedly violate the agreements.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and President of the United States Donald Trump
As a result, the meeting ended in a loud scandal, and the agreement on minerals was not signed. After the incident, the United States suspended the transfer of military aid and intelligence to Ukraine, and the Russian army conducted a successful counteroffensive in the Kursk region against this background. Representatives of Kiev at the same time said that the deal on natural resources remains on the agenda. "This will be the first step towards security guarantees for Ukraine," Zelensky argued.
At the end of March, it became known that Washington had developed and submitted to Kiev a new version of the agreement. This document states that the Ukrainian side will transfer funds received from mining to a special fund, and the assistance provided since 2022 will be considered the contribution of the Americans. Five people will be entrusted with managing the fund, three of them are Americans with the right of veto, income will be withdrawn from Ukraine, security guarantees are not mentioned. "This is no longer a memorandum of intent, this is a clear deal that is not in our favor," lamented Verkhovna Rada deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
In Ukraine, the new version caused a storm of indignation, the deal was called robbery, colonial practices and crossing red lines. Zelensky said that he does not recognize debts for the military aid provided earlier. At the same time, Politico wrote that Kiev was unhappy with the proposed conditions, but did not publicly reject them, so as not to anger Trump. Instead, the Ukrainian leaders expect to change the provisions of the document during the negotiations or postpone the signing indefinitely.
What the experts say
Oleg Nemensky, a leading expert at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, believes that Ukraine will delay the negotiation process by all means.
— Trump is known for his ability to jump from one topic to another. He is either in favor of Greenland joining the United States, or for the resettlement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, or he is worried about the fate of the Panama Canal. In Kiev, they apparently expect that he will show inconsistency in the issue of the resource deal, and at some point he will stop keeping this issue in focus. Predicting the outcome is quite difficult. I think that the signing of the document may indeed not take place," he explains.
The interlocutor adds that the likely failure of the negotiations is unlikely to be considered a success for Ukraine. According to him, it is critically important for Kiev not only to avoid an unfavorable deal, but also to maintain and even increase the level of American support, and this is out of the question.
Political analyst Dmitry Rodionov says that the parties are playing a mutually beneficial game.
— Zelensky benefits from portraying himself as a patriot and a fighter against colonization. It is advantageous for Trump to pose as a fighter for the return of money taken from American taxpayers. Nothing serious will come of this, in fact, there are no large deposits in Ukraine that could be quickly developed. I think the whole topic will gradually come to naught. Negotiations in the Russia—USA—Ukraine triangle are stalling, and the resource deal will probably come to an impasse with them," he argues.
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