A provisional deal between Washington and Kyiv on exploiting Ukraine’s natural resources will give Ukraine the “right to fight on,” Donald Trump has said.
The U.S. and Ukrainian governments have agreed on terms for the joint exploitation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth as part of a deal President Donald Trump has pushed for to recoup some of the aid Washington has granted Kyiv during the last three years of war.
The Ukrainska Pravda news site, which has had access to the text, reported that the agreement provides for the establishment of an Investment Reconstruction Fund from the joint exploitation of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral reserves and other resources, including oil and gas.
The service said the deal would be signed by Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. However, the BBC reported Wednesday that President Trump had said he was expecting his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Washington to sign the deal this week.
Local media report that the revised text also does not specify security arrangements, though a major U.S. financial interest in Ukraine is seen as a key factor in Washington’s willingness to protect the country.
Trump said the deal gave Ukraine “lots of military equipment,” though it was unclear whether he was referring to past aid or any future commitment. The Kyiv Independent quoted him as saying arms shipments could “go forward for a while, maybe until we have a deal with Russia.”
Trump said on Tuesday that “some form of peacekeeping” would be needed in the event of a peace agreement being reached with Russia. U.S. and Russian diplomats met in Riyadh on February 18 for initial talks aimed at finding a solution to the war.
U.S. wants its money back
The U.S. president claimed on Tuesday that the U.S. has granted Ukraine $350 billion in military aid since Russia’s 2022 invasion. The Voice of America puts the amount appropriated by Congress for the purpose at $183 billion, citing Pentagon and U.S. government figures.
“Without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time,” Trump said on Tuesday. “We want to get that money back.”
Zelenskyy refused to sign off on an earlier version of the agreement, arguing it was too heavily weighted in America’s favor and provided no security guarantees against the prospects of future Russian aggression.
He said at the time he could not “sell the state.”
“I am not signing something that will be paid by 10 generations of Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said.
A clause in the agreement’s original draft giving the U.S. rights to $500 billion in revenues from Ukraine’s resources has been dropped, local media reported. Urkainska Pravda said another clause had also been removed, giving the U.S. 100% control over the fund.
“The provisions of the deal are much better for Ukraine now,” a source at Zelenskyy’s office told the BBC.
Olha Stefanishyna, a deputy prime minister who led Ukraine’s negotiations for the deal, told the U.K.’s Financial Times newspaper that it forms only part of a broader agreement.
“We have heard multiple times from the U.S. administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” she said.
