No Security Guarantees Agreed on Yet in US–Ukraine Minerals Deal: Zelenskyy

Then-former President Donald Trump with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York on Sept. 27, 2024. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that no U.S. security guarantees have been agreed on yet in a draft minerals deal with the United States.

In a press conference in Kyiv on Feb. 26, Zelenskyy said, “I wanted to have a sentence on security guarantees for Ukraine, and it’s important that it’s there.”

Ukraine needs to know where the United States stands on its continued military support, Zelenskyy said.

On the same day, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal disclosed the final stages of the draft minerals deal with the United States, which the war-town country will sign if both countries agree on security guarantees.

Shmyhal said the government would authorize the draft agreement later on Wednesday.

“After the Ukrainian president and the U.S. president agree on security guarantees, agree on how we tie this preliminary agreement to security guarantees from the United States for our country, in the presence of [both] presidents, a representative of the Ukrainian government will sign this preliminary agreement,” he said.

He outlined the draft in televised comments and said Kyiv would contribute 50 percent of “all proceeds received from the future monetization of all relevant state-owned natural resource assets and relevant infrastructure.”

These would then go into a fund under the joint control of the United States and Ukraine, he said.

“Already existing deposits, facilities, licenses, and rents are not subject to discussion when creating this fund,” he added.

‘Bigger Picture’

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Zelenskyy is expected in Washington on Friday to sign the deal. The Epoch Times could not immediately confirm whether the two leaders were scheduled to meet for a signing ceremony. When asked, the White House referred to the president’s earlier remarks in the Oval Office.

The deal is seen as key to ending the three-year Russia–Ukraine conflict, with Zelenskyy having previously stressed that any such deal must involve concrete security guarantees.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minster Olha Stefanishyna, who’s leading the negotiations, told the Financial Times on Tuesday that the deal goes beyond minerals and is “part of a bigger picture” that will deepen Ukraine’s ties with the United States.

In a recent Financial Times op-ed, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the proposed deal as a way to attract private investment and align the long-term interests of both nations, fostering economic growth and stability in Ukraine. He emphasized that the United States would not take ownership of any physical assets but that both sides would benefit from the cooperation.

“President Trump’s proposed partnership aligns the interests of the American people with those of the people of Ukraine,” Bessent wrote. “The president recognizes that national security is built alongside economic security, and the more successful and secure postwar Ukraine is, the more both the Ukrainian people and the people of the U.S. will benefit.”

Rare Earth Metals Extraction

Rare earth metals, a group of 17 essential elements, play a key role in powering modern technology, from electric vehicle motors to missile guidance systems.

However, Ukraine’s rare earths and minerals may not be that easy to extract.

According to a Feb. 13 report by rating agency S&P’s global commodity insights team, Ukraine is “relying on a Soviet-era assessment of difficult-to-access rare earths deposits.”

“Some are stuck behind battle lines or, in the case of the geological record for one of the sites, require advanced processing technology and a stable energy grid to extract,” the report said, adding that the valuation of the deposits is based on “decades-old data.”

“No sources contacted by Commodity Insights were aware of any commercial exploration or assessment of those deposits in the post-Soviet period.”

Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, told S&P that he was “not aware of any significant rare earth assets or reserves in Ukraine.”

“This is just another breathless fantasy that we will magically solve our critical mineral constraints through a country at war,” he said. “The closest analogy for me is the very similar hyperbole about the trillions of dollars of minerals sitting under Afghanistan.”

Tom Ozimek, Reuters, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.