Ukraine reaches minerals deal with United States
Kyiv has agreed terms with Washington on a minerals deal that Ukrainian officials hope will improve relations with the Trump administration and pave the way for a long-term U.S. security commitment.
Ukrainian officials say Kyiv is now ready to sign the agreement on jointly developing its mineral resources, including oil and gas, after the United States dropped demands for a right to US$500 billion in potential revenue from exploiting the resources.
Although the text lacks explicit security guarantees, the officials argued that they had negotiated far more favourable terms and depicted the deal as a way of broadening the relationship with the U.S. to shore up Ukraine’s prospects after three years of war.
“The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the U.S. administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, told the Financial Times on Tuesday.
The original draft’s highly onerous terms — which President Donald Trump presented as a means of Ukraine repaying the U.S. for military and financial aid since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion — provoked outrage in Kyiv and other European capitals.
After President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected that initial text last week, Trump called him a “dictator” and appeared to blame Ukraine for starting the war.
The final version of the agreement, dated Feb. 24 and seen by the FT, would establish a fund into which Ukraine would contribute 50 per cent of proceeds from the “future monetization” of state-owned mineral resources, including oil and gas, and associated logistics. The fund would invest in projects in Ukraine.
It excludes mineral resources
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