SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By Tom Balmforth, Yuliia Dysa and Trevor Hunnicutt
Kyiv and Washington have signed a deal that will give America preferential access to Ukraine’s vast critical minerals and natural resources, days after US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met at Pope Francis’ funeral.
The two sides offered little detail about the structure of the deal, which they called the United States-Ukraine Reinvestment Fund. But it is expected to give the US access to Ukraine’s valuable rare earth minerals while providing Kyiv with a measure of assurance about continued American support in its grinding war with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
The two countries signed the accord late on Wednesday, Washington time, after months of sometimes fraught negotiations. Uncertainty persisted until the last moment, with word of an 11th-hour snag.
The accord establishes the joint investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as Trump tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia’s three-year-old war in Ukraine. It is central to Kyiv’s efforts to mend ties with Trump, which frayed after he took office in January.
A fiery meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the Oval Office on February 28 ended with the Ukrainian leader leaving the White House early and prompted the US to temporarily suspend military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. They also did not sign the minerals deal, as anticipated.
Trump has long criticised Zelensky, saying he didn’t “have the cards” to win the war and blaming him for prolonging the killing by not giving up Crimea.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko sign the agreement to establish the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. Credit: Credit: X/US Treasury
But in recent days, Trump has rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin as well, saying he is complicating negotiations with “very bad timing” in launching deadly strikes on Kyiv.
Trump and Zelensky met in St Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, without aides, minutes before the Pope’s funeral. Zelensky later said the meeting had the potential to be historic, while the White House said it was productive.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko were shown signing the minerals agreement on Wednesday in a photo posted on X by the Treasury.
“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said in a statement, reported by The New York Times.
“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.”
After the deal was signed, Trump said it – “in theory” – meant that the US would get more from Ukraine than it contributed. “I wanted to be protected,” he said, adding that he didn’t want to look “foolish” by not getting money back for the investment.
For Ukraine, the agreement is seen as key to ensuring its access to future US military aid.
“Truly, this is a strategic deal for the creation of an investment partner fund,” Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. “This is truly an equal and good international deal on joint investment in the development and restoration of Ukraine between the governments of the United States and Ukraine.”
Svyrydenko wrote on X that the accord also provided for Washington to contribute to the fund. “In addition to direct financial contributions, it may also provide NEW assistance – for example, air defence systems for Ukraine,” she said.
Washington has been Ukraine’s single largest military donor since Russia’s 2022 invasion, with aid of more than $US72 billion ($112 billion), according to the Kiel Institute in Germany.
Before the signing, Trump repeated on Wednesday that the US should get something for its aid to Kyiv, thus the effort to secure a deal for Ukraine’s plentiful deposits of rare earth minerals.
The US has been seeking access to more than 20 raw materials deemed strategically critical to its interests, including some non-minerals such as oil and natural gas.
Among them are Ukraine’s deposits of titanium, which is used for making aircraft wings and other aerospace manufacturing, and uranium, which is used for nuclear power, medical equipment and weapons. Ukraine also has lithium, graphite and manganese, which are used in electric vehicle batteries.
After Kyiv felt the initial US draft of the deal disproportionately favoured American interests, it introduced new provisions aimed at addressing those concerns.
According to Shmyhal, the latest version would establish an equal partnership between the two countries and last for 10 years. Financial contributions to a joint fund would be made in cash, and only new US military aid would count towards the American share. Assistance provided before the agreement was signed would not be counted.
Unlike an earlier draft, the deal would not conflict with Ukraine’s path toward European Union membership – a key provision for Kyiv.
The Ukrainian cabinet approved the agreement on Wednesday, empowering Svyrydenko – who flew to Washington to help finalise the deal – to sign it. It still needs to be ratified by the Ukrainian parliament before it can take effect.
In announcing the deal, the US Treasury said the partnership recognised “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”.
The agreement comes amid rocky progress in Washington’s push to stop the war.
Western European leaders have accused Putin of stalling while his forces seek to grab more Ukrainian land. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory since Moscow’s forces launched a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
Putin backed calls for a ceasefire before peace negotiations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during his daily conference call with reporters, adding that “before it’s done, it’s necessary to answer a few questions and sort out a few nuances”.
Trump has long dismissed the war as a waste of lives and American taxpayer money – a complaint he repeated on Wednesday during his cabinet meeting.
Russia has in effect rejected a US proposal for an immediate and full 30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt to Ukraine’s mobilisation effort and Western arms supplies to Kyiv.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on Wednesday that Ukraine had accepted an unconditional truce only because it was being pushed back on the battlefield, where Russian forces had the upper hand.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded in attacks every day this year, according to a United Nations report presented this week in New York.
The UN Human Rights Office said in the report that in the first three months of this year, it had verified 2641 civilian casualties in Ukraine. That was almost 900 more than during the same period last year.
Reuters
