Abdujalil Abdurasulov
BBC News
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Ukraine has substantial supplies of key minerals, but some are now in occupied territory
kyiv and Washington are about to sign an agreement on American access to Ukraine mineral deposits, said a Ukrainian minister.
Olga Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, said on X that “negotiations have been very constructive, with almost all the key details finalized”.
She added that “we are committed to finishing this quickly to make her signature”.
Zelensky first included the offer of an agreement on minerals in the so-called “victory plan” he presented to Trump last September.
The idea was to offer the presidential candidate of the time a tangible reason for the United States to continue to support Ukraine.
On Monday, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the BBC to kyiv that such an agreement was “the Grand Prix” because he would get “an American commitment under Donald Trump towards a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine”.
What minerals in Ukraine?
Kyiv estimates that around 5% of the world’s “critical raw materials” are in Ukraine. This includes some 19 million tonnes of proven graphite reserves, which, according to the state agency of the Ukrainian Geological Survey, made the nation “one of the five main main countries” for the supply of the mineral.
Graphite is used to make batteries for electric vehicles.
Ukraine also has a third of all European lithium deposits, the key component of current batteries. And before the Russian invasion, the world share of Ukraine of titanium production, a light metal used in the construction of everything, from planes to power plants, was 7%.
In addition, Ukraine has significant deposits of rare land metals. These are a group of 17 elements that are used to produce weapons, wind turbines, electronics and other vital products in the modern world.
However, some of the mineral deposits were seized by Russia. According to Yulia Svyrydenko, the Minister of the Economy of Ukraine, resources worth $ 350 billion (277 billion pounds sterling) remain in occupied territories today.
In 2022, SecDEV, a geopolitical risk council based in Canada, carried out an evaluation, which established that Russia had occupied 63% of the mine of Ukrainian coal and half of its deposits of manganese, cesium, tantale and of rare earths.
Dr. Robert Muggah, director of Secdev, says that these minerals add a “strategic and economic dimension” in the continuous aggression of Russia. By seizing them, he says, Moscow denies access to Ukraine, widens its own resource base and influences global supply chains.
Why do the United States want them?
Critical minerals “are the foundation of the 21st century economy,” said Dr. Muggah. They are essential for renewable energies, military applications and industrial infrastructure. They play “an increasing strategic role in geopolitics and geoeconomics”.
In addition, the United States is eager to make an agreement for Ukraine mineral resources because it wants to reduce dependence on China, which controls 75% of rare land deposits in the world, according to The Geological Investment Group.
In December, China prohibited the export of certain minerals from rare land to the United States, having already limited mineral exports to the United States the previous year.
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Minerals such as lithium and graphite are vital for the production of electric cars
What do we know about negotiations so far?
Before Stefanishyna’s assertion that an agreement was close, there seemed to be several collision points.
Last Wednesday, Zelensky rejected American requests for a 50% of its minerals of rare earths – which, according to Trump, would reflect the amount of aid that the United States had provided to Ukraine during his war with Russia .
“I can’t sell our condition,” he said.
The provisions of a second version of the agreement on Sunday seemed even more difficult than in the first document.
Instead of the distribution of 50/50 income, the revised project suggested that the United States wanted complete control, journalists told Zelensky at the press conference on Sunday.
Zelenzky also wanted any agreement to include security guarantees.
On Monday, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called an agreement for access to the United States to Ukraine minerals “The Great Prize”.
He rejected the suggestions that the agreement was a “scam” and declared that “what the Ukrainians obtain from this is an American commitment under Donald Trump towards a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine”.
Some commentators have described the American offer as “colonial”, but kyiv is interested in the joint exploration of its resources.
The development of these mineral resources is extremely difficult and costly, explains Iryna Suprun, director general of the Geological Investment Group, a mining consulting company based in Ukraine. She maintains that if they can attract American investors to develop their natural resources, this will be very beneficial for the country’s economy.
“We will get technologies that are missing from our mining industry,” explains Ms. Superun. “We will get capital. This means more jobs, tax payments. We will receive income from the development of mineral deposits.”
