Still doubt that Voldemort is going to wrap this up.
Plus we'll get the motion picture rights along with all those precious metals!
Ukraine Agrees to Mineral-Rights Deal With U.S.
Trump says he will meet Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
By Jane Lytvynenko, Alexander Ward and Ian Lovett, WSJ
Updated Feb. 25, 2025 5:40 pm ET
KYIV—Ukraine has agreed to a mineral-rights deal with the U.S. that could be finalized as soon as Friday at a White House meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
People close to the negotiations said the text had now been agreed, and the U.S. had dropped its previous demand for the right to $500 billion in potential revenue from the development of Ukraine’s mineral resources.
“It’s a very big deal. It could be a trillion-dollar deal,” Trump told reporters Tuesday. “We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Ukraine and Russia fighting a war that should have never ever happened.”
The signing ceremony would be a personal victory for Zelensky, who has been pushing for a face-to-face meeting with Trump but has instead had to watch as the U.S. opened discussions with Moscow about how to end the war—excluding Ukraine. The Ukrainian president had refused to sign the mineral-rights deal presented by a lower-level official, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Zelensky’s refusal to sign set off a rapid deterioration in the relationship between Washington and Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president had said for months that Ukraine’s allies in the war against Russia could have access to the country’s mineral resources. However, he said he couldn’t sign an agreement that didn’t include security guarantees for Ukraine. Officials across Europe also expressed shock at some of the demands the U.S. had made in the offer, including the right to up to $500 billion in revenue from mineral development, which is far more than the U.S. has contributed to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began.
“I don’t want something that 10 generations of Ukrainians will have to pay back,” he said at a news conference on Sunday.
After Zelensky refused the initial offer, Trump called him a dictator and falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war. Top U.S. officials met with their Russian counterparts to discuss how to end the conflict, without Ukraine, and the U.S. voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.
Though the new text doesn’t include security guarantees, Ukrainian officials hope it can help reset the country’s relationship with Trump.
Trump said that there would be peacekeepers in Ukraine, but didn’t say if the U.S. would provide any support or troops to the deterrence mission. Despite Russia’s opposition to European forces in Ukraine, Trump assured reporters Tuesday the agreement would include “a form of peacekeeping that’s acceptable to everybody.”
The agreement on the final text of a deal was earlier reported by the Financial Times.
Under the terms of the agreement, Ukraine would pay some proceeds from future mineral resource development into a fund that would invest in projects in Ukraine. Resources that already make money for the Ukrainian government—such as existing oil and gas production—will be exempt from the deal.
The size of the U.S.’s stake in the fund and joint ownership deals will be hashed out in future agreements.
Up to now, the U.S. has been Ukraine’s largest supporter during the war, sending more than $100 billion in aid to the country, including nearly $70 billion in military aid.
However, Trump’s statements in recent days have jolted not only Kyiv but leaders across Europe, who have held a series of meetings over the past week to plan for how they could aid Ukraine if the U.S. pulled its support.
Without U.S. support, current and former Western officials say, Ukraine is well equipped to keep fighting at the same intensity at least until summer. After that, however, Kyiv could find itself short of ammunition and unable to use some of its most sophisticated weaponry.
Hoping to further distance Washington from Kyiv, the Kremlin recently floated an offer to give the U.S. access to mineral resources in Russia and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Europe, meanwhile, put together its own mineral rights offer for Ukraine.
Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank in Washington, said Ukraine’s agreement with the U.S. could increase Trump’s leverage in peace talks with Russia.
“It should be something big that the U.S. demands from Moscow as this was a big concession from Ukraine,” she said.
Ukraine is believed to have deposits of at least 20 of the 50 minerals that the U.S. considers critical. These include lithium, graphite, titanium, uranium and rare earths, a collection of 17 elements that are essential for everything from cellphones to the defense industry.
Their collective potential value is estimated to be trillions of dollars, according to industry analysts.
However, up to 40% of those mineral deposits are in areas of the country currently under Russian occupation. Much of what is under Ukrainian control has never been mined. Making them commercially viable will, in some cases, require years of studies and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment—capital that will be difficult to raise while the war is still going on.
Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com
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