The United States and Ukraine sign an agreement for the exploitation of minerals | International

Washington and Kiev saved the latest pitfalls on Wednesday to reach an economic agreement for the exploitation of critical mineral reserves. After weeks of pressure, Andarriverile, which included a scream And in front of the world among the presidents of the United States, Donald Trump and Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, his company will give priority access to the United States to new investment projects to exploit Ukrainian natural wealth, as Trump wanted, to recover part of Washington’s contributions in Kyiv’s defense. The pact incorporates the implicit commitment that they will continue to arrive and will be sealed with the background of the conversations to end the war that started the Russian invasion of February 2022, who are found glued.

The Ukrainian Economy Minister, Yulia Swyidenko, traveled Washington on Wednesday to sew the latest fringes of the pact, which affects key resources such as aluminum, graphite, oil and natural gas. The announcement was made at the end of the afternoon (time of Washington, on the margins of the Spanish midnight) the Treasury Department, which celebrated in a declaration the creation of a “Fund for the investment of reconstruction of the US-UKRAINE”.

The secretary of the American treasure, Scott Bestent, subsequently published a video in X, in which he affirms that the agreement “allows the United States to invest together with Ukraine, exploit the activities of its growth, mobilize talents, capital and standard of American governance that will improve the climate of investments and accelerate the climate of investments and will accelerate the economic recovery of the country”.

Swiridenko also looked at the social network to affirm: “With the United States, we are creating a fund that will attract global investments”.

Hours earlier, Bestent had understood the latest difficulties in negotiation. “Last night (Tuesday) the Ukrainians made some changes, which we are sure that they will reconsider in such a way we can sign,” said the Treasury Secretary to the question of a journalist at the end of a long meeting of the Trump cabinet, whose members praised the first 100 days of his administration.

“This agreement”, added Bestent after the signature, “clearly underlines that the Trump administration is engaged in a peace process focused on a free, sovereign and long -term prosperous Ukraine. (…) No state or person who finishes or provides (resources) to the Russian war machine can take a slice of the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

According to the United States, there are more than 20 raw material strategies for their interests; Among these, in addition to oil and natural gas, titanium, aeronautical or uranium use, used to produce nuclear energy, medical equipment and weapons. Ukraine also has lithium, graphite and manganese, essential for electric vehicles batteries.

According to the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denis Shmihal, the latest version of the alliance establishes an egalitarian association between the two countries for 10 years. Also the text Solve, second Ap, Two negotiation points that had been in the air in recent weeks. On the one hand, the pact is not connected to any commitment to renounce his entry into the European Union, as at a certain point he meant US negotiators. On the other, he leaves the idea of ​​Trump that the money obtained from the exploitation of these natural resources serves to return dozens of billions of dollars provided by the United States since the beginning of the war. Its area is limited only to the new military help, but not to last.

The company arrives in a symbolic moment for Trump, which makes 100 days in office, harassed by the low approval rates and the bad news that speak of the First contraction of the economy since 2022. In these days the President of the United States has also shown his impatience to ensure that Russia and Ukraine signed a peace agreement that during the campaign promised that he would favor during his first day in office.

Los About 175,000 million dollars (About 155,000 million euros) sent by the United States to support Ukraine from the beginning of the large Russian invasion are essential for the survival of the attacked country.

Do not contradict the Constitution

The Ukrainian Prime Minister led the delegation last week that outlined what could be a definitive agreement with the Trump administration in Washington. “We have clearly defined our red lines; the agreement must respect European obligations and not to contradict the Constitution or the Ukrainian legislation,” said Shmihal through its social netweex last weekend, which implies that the pact was closer than ever.

It was expected that the signature of the Treaty would occur February 28th at the White HouseBut this was suspended after Trump and his vice -president, JD Vance, humiliated Zelenski when a conversation in the presence of the screaming press.

The high American and Ukrainian positions signed a document in early April and left the negotiations open. Last Saturday, Zelenski met Trump in one separated during the funeral of Pope Francis, in a gesture that was interpreted as an approach to Postures between the two leaders. In the 15 minutes of conversation in the middle of the Basilica of San Pedro del Vaticano, one of the issues addressed was the agreement of the minerals, according to Assios.

After that meeting, Trump, while he returns to the United States in Air Force OneFor the first time he expressed his doubts about the real intentions of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his will to end the war. He also threatened him, in a message on his social network, the truth, with new secondary penalties and against the banking sector.

In addition to the agreement on minerals and other natural resources, the project that came to light from Washington to negotiate the end of the competition contemplates that the United States is performed with the control of the Central Nuclear de Zaporiyiathe largest in Europe. These structures, in the region with the same name, remain occupied by the military of the Kremlin from the first days of the Russian invasion, although to function they continue according to the local employees. The solomonic decision of the President of the United States, despite being a territory and Ukrainian structures, crosses the future electricity of that plant for both Ukrainians and Russians.

Intensification of attacks

In the meantime, Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks. A missile ended last Thursday with the life of 12 people in Kyiv, in the worst attack on the capital since summer. In the early hours of Wednesday, the city of Járkov, among others, suffered an offensive with drones that caused at least one dead and dozens of wounded. The Kremlin aspires to a peace agreement that would mean winning control over four Ukrainian provinces. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s correspondent to negotiate with the president Putin, ha The Commission to convince him to sign a pact that leaves the boundaries between the two countries at the height of the current front.

Ukraine has deposits of 22 of the 50 materials classified as critics by the geological service of the United States and which includes resources of rare lands and other essential materials for the production of electronic products, technologies and clean energy weapons. Ukraine has signed an agreement similar to the one that Washington from now on.

In this matter, China also appears, leader in world production of minerals of rare lands and other materials of strategic importance, which has moved the western countries to seek alternatives such as the one that now finds the United States in Ukraine.

Russia explodes and merchants illegally in the last decade, since it occupied the Crimea peninsula and part of the Ukrainian region of Donbás, natural resources of Kyiv, as well as the crops of their farms. Dozens of Russian companies in the territory of Donbás have been incorporated into the production system of the occupants’ forces. Some of them benefit from the illegal trade in the donbás mines, despite the commercial restrictions and sanctions imposed on the Kremlin from the EU and the United States. Up to twenty Ukrainian farms (13 in the province of Lugansk and 7 in Donetsk) they passed through 2024 at the hands of the companies in the invading country, according to an investigation into the vehicle The independent Kyiv, This followed the traces of those resources in the international market.

On March 29, the ship of the Russian flag Sv. Nikolay He was with Ukrainian coal stolen in his cellars ready to download in the Algerian Puerto De Annaba, says this vehicle. Everything indicates that he sailed from the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, in the coastal area of ​​the Black Sea which remains under the Russian occupation. This exploitation is performed, according to that same source, with the collaboration of the environment of the former Ukrainian president Víktor YanukóvichWhich fled to Moscow after being accused of having looted the public finances when in 2014 the current conflict began to be created.