President Donald Trump And the Ukrainian President VolodyMyr Zenskyy will sign a milestone mineral deal on Friday that represents a breakthrough in their relationship, but leaves the work of chopping out the financial details for a later date.
“This is in a certain sense an agreement to conclude an agreement,” says Doug Klain, policy analyst at Razom for Ukraine.
Yet it was an abrupt reversal of last week, when Zenskyy rejected the first conditions for a deal. Trump, who found Zenskyy invaluable for our help, explained him as a “dictator” and said that Ukraine “should never have started the war”.
Trump says that the minerals deal is ‘almost’ negotiated with Zenskyy, who meets Friday for Friday
So how did both parties reversed things? This is what we know so far about the deal:
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodyymyr Zenskyy will sign a mineral deal on Friday. (AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Reconstruction Investment Fund
In contrast to an earlier iteration of the deal, the latest version, approved by the Ukrainian cabinet on Wednesday, draws up a fund with joint American ownership instead of 100% American ownership.
The Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said on Wednesday that Ukraine would look out half of his income from future oil, gas and mineral projects in the fund, in which part of that money is re-invested for more development. The deal would exclude existing projects for natural resources.
The deal says that as soon as both parties register with the first framework, negotiations will start with a “subsequent agreement” about whom will determine how much of the fund and its operation.
Two parties still far apart when reimbursing the subsidy
The US initially demanded Ukraine for $ 500 billion in its rare earths and other minerals as a backpack for about $ 185 billion in aid. The latest versions of the deal do not include a concrete figure for how many of the mineral income the US would receive or the size of the importance that the US would keep in the fund.
On a Wednesday news conference, Zenskyy still said His country would not repay the US for one of the already assigned help.
“In this deal I will not (even) accept 10 cents of the repayment of debts. Otherwise it will be a precedent.”
But Trump seemed satisfied with the last negotiations.
Rubio denies that Trump excludes Ukraine from Russian conversations, pushes back on NATO criticism
“We are doing very well with Russia-Ukraine. President Zensky is coming on Friday. It has now been confirmed and we are going to sign an agreement,” he said on Wednesday.
The agreement has few details about how the US would benefit financially.
“Perhaps American companies will be contracted to do all the extraction work, and they can make great profits in this way; perhaps the American government would grant itself an annual amount from the fund; or perhaps there would be a provision that American companies could buy the minerals at reduced rates,” explained Peter Harris, a political science-making group at Colorado.
But rare earth extraction is a long and difficult process. “It can take decades for someone to make a dime from the untouched natural resources of Ukraine,” said Harris.
Residents stand next to a car that has been destroyed by a Russian air raid in Kramatersk, the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on 27 February 2025. (Reuters/Inna Varsytsia)
What Ukraine wants from the deal: security guarantees
Ukraine is looking for help from all over the world to Keep Russia out In the future if they can agree on conditions to end the war.
But Zenskyy is desperately looking for American participation, because he does not believe that European security guarantees are only sufficient to deter the Russian president Vladimir Putin from again.
American officials have insisted that America will not put boots on the ground. “I am not going to make many security guarantees-we are going to have Europe done because we are talking about Europe, their neighbor is,” Trump said Wednesday.
American officials have also told Ukraine to read between the rules: if the US have significant financial interests, possibly even employees on site in the region, it will defend those interests.
“The Ukrainians are not entirely convinced by that argument,” said Klain. “It is reminiscent of 1994, the agreement that Ukraine has concluded with the US, Russia and others to give up its nuclear arsenal, and the US would say:” If someone threatens your sovereignty, we have your back. “
“Ukraine doesn’t want to be burned anymore.”
Zenskyy looking for ‘NATO or something similar’ while he prepares for a meeting with Trump
The agreement contains a vague reference that “supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to determine permanent peace,” said the KYIV Independent.
Harris said that a “back door protection guarantee” via a minerals deal amounted to “bad policy” for the US
“It serves (not) of the US for large numbers of American employees to be stationed in an unstable post-conflict zone,” he said. “Uncertain access to the natural resources of Ukraine is not worth risking a NATO-Russian war.”
Putin has offered our mineral access in Russia. (Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool)
Putin Dangling Russian controlled minerals for Trump
Ukraine controls more than 100 important deposits of critical minerals, according to the KYIV School of Economics, together with some oil and gas reserves. The reserves contain titanium, lithium, graphite, rare earths and other minerals that key to the energy and technical sectors.
Trump wants income from the minerals as a repayment, but he would also like to look for China’s monopoly on the rare earthy metals used in telephones, solar panels and other electronics.
In the meantime, Putin said that he is open to offering American access to rare minerals, including those from the “new areas” of Russia – who are trapped in his war against Ukraine.
Click here to get the Fox News app
He said that an American mineral deal is not a problem and that Russia is “undoubtedly, I want, considerably more resources of this kind of than Ukraine”, in on television on television on television.
“As far as the new areas are concerned, it is the same. We are ready to go foreign partners to the so -called new ones, to our historic areas that have returned to the Russian Federation,” he added.
