Ukraine and US sign long-awaited minerals deal - The Times - 01.05.25
- Michael Julien
- May 1
- 4 min read
Kyiv’s economy minister travelled to Washington to finalise the agreement, days after Trump and Zelensky’s Vatican meeting by Marc Bennetts, Dnipro and Will Pavia, New York.
A deal between the Trump and Zelensky administrations looked unlikely a few weeks ago.
Ukraine and the US have signed a long-awaited minerals deal, concluding an agreement that had been touted by President Trump as recompense for billions of dollars in aid and by Kyiv as a chance to secure continued American support in the war against Russia.
Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, said the deal marked the beginning of a “historic economic partnership”, that “signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine”.
The deal established “a United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund”, the Treasury Department said in a statement. It had been reached “in recognition of the significant financial and material support that the people of the United States have provided to the defence of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion,” it added.
Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s economy minister, who travelled to Washington to sign the deal, said that the agreement left Ukraine in “full ownership and control” of its resources. The Ukrainian government would decide “where and what to extract”, she said.
“The agreement does not mention any debt obligations of Ukraine to the United States,” she said in a post on X. Nor would it stymie or alter Ukrainian efforts to achieve greater European integration.
The fund it created would be filled only with revenues from new licences to extract “critical materials and oil and gas”, she said.
The US International Development Finance Corporation, America’s development bank, would work with the government of Ukraine in establishing the fund and in an attracting “global investment into our country” from the US, the EU “and other countries that support our fight against the Russian enemy”, Svyrydenko added.
In a statement after the deal, Bessent added: “President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.
“And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Scott Bessent said earlier on Wednesday that “our side is ready to sign”
Officials in Kyiv hoped that the deal will ensure the US continues to give Ukraine military assistance.
Svyrydenko said the US would contribute to the fund and could also provide new assistance, “for example, air defence systems for Ukraine”. She said the partnership was intended to provide “a signal to other global players that it is reliable to co-operate with Ukraine in the long-term”.
Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian prime minister, had signalled that a deal was imminent earlier on Wednesday. “This is truly a good, equal and beneficial international agreement on joint investments in the development and recovery of Ukraine,” he said on national TV. “I hope that the agreement will be signed in the near future, within the next 24 hours.”
Bessent had spoken of the deal briefly in a cabinet meeting, saying that “our side is ready to sign” but that the “Ukrainians decided last night to make some last minute changes. We are sure that they will reconsider that.”
President Trump has not approved any new aid for Kyiv since his return to the White House in January.
The US has provided about a third of the weapons and other military hardware used by the Ukrainian army since Russia launched its invasion in 2022, according to President Zelensky.
On Wednesday, Zelensky spoke with Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, who said his country was committed to supporting Ukraine in achieving lasting peace and security.
Zelensky congratulated Carney on his victory in Monday’s general election, and the two leaders agreed that a durable peace could only be achieved with Ukraine at the negotiating table, Carney’s office said in a statement.
Shmyhal said on Monday that Trump had agreed to drop his demand that Kyiv pay back the US for military and financial assistance provided by the Biden administration. Those funds would have come from the minerals deal.
He reported “good progress” on the deal during a meeting with Bessent last week.
The deal is believed to feature a “50-50” joint fund, under which proceeds from the deal will be divided between Kyiv and Washington.
About 5 per cent of the world’s critical raw materials are in Ukraine, according to officials in Kyiv.
Among them are large reserves of lithium, about a third of them in Europe, which is important for batteries and new technologies. However, analysts say that many of the rare earths and minerals will require massive investment before they can be tapped.
Resources worth about £280 billion are in territory occupied by Russia, Ukraine’s economy ministry said recently.
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Ukraine says that it holds about 5 per cent of the world’s critical raw materials
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
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