Ukraine bent with the US to utilize hidden materials in its soil.
According to information reported on Tuesday, the United States and Ukraine have signed an agreement on Ukraine’s mineral resources.
The US -Ukraine Minerals Agreement provides the United States with the potential to commercially utilize minerals in Ukraine’s soil. According to American media The agreement will be signed at the White House on Friday.
compiled five key issues from the agreement.
1. What does the agreement contain?
The details of the agreement are not clear.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has previously demanded safety guarantees in return for excavation permits.
The New York Times magazine In previous drafts of the contract, security guarantees were not mentioned. The magazine has not seen the latest, from Kiev from nature to Washington. The agreement is described as quite general and there is no mention of the security guarantees in the latest agreement.
President Donald Trump In the past, it has flashed that mineral resources would be a fee for military aid already received by Ukraine.
The agreement is reportedly signed by the Ukraine and US Finance ministers before the presidents.
2. What kind of minerals are the United States seeking?
Most of Ukraine’s significant mineral funds are located in areas occupied by Russia in eastern Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian officials who spoke to the AFP news agency, this would be a “framework agreement” that also includes Ukraine oil and gas funds. The income is due to go to the recently established US -Ukraine Energy Fund.
The fund would invest in projects in Ukraine.
Apparently, the mineral resources that Ukraine have received income from the war would apparently be excluded from the fund. The details of the agreement are also not known in this respect. For example, Ukraine’s large gas and oil producers Naphtogaz and Ukrnafta would not include the joint fund agreement. The Financial Times reports on this issue.
3. What kind of schedule would minerals be dug?
Mineral mining is expensive and long -lasting activities. There is no accurate information on the magnitude of Ukraine’s mineral resources. Some of the estimates are from the Soviet period and the current situation is based on forecasts.
For example, an international credit rating S&P Global estimatesthat the mineral content of rare earth metals may be too low to make it commercially profitable to start mining.
It may take about twenty years from ore exploration to mining in stable conditions. On average, one in a thousand ore exploration operations leads to the establishment of a mine, says Mining industry on its website.
4. What is the value of the contract?
Estimates of Ukraine’s natural resources and their value vary greatly. In any case, the United States calls for half of the natural resources in Ukraine. It’s about thousands of billions of dollars.
The soil includes lithium, cobalt, beryllium, nickel and, for example, the rare earth metals needed for electric cars.
Ukraine has done before the war According to The Moscow Times For example, a copper trade for 30 million tonnes worth about $ 270 billion per year. As a whole, Ukraine is estimated to be 5 % of the world’s mineral resources.
5. What does Ukraine get, bad peace or cooperation with the West?
As the content of the agreement is not known, its effects are difficult to assess.
Professor of World Politics at the University of Helsinki Teivo Teivainen sees two factors in Ukraine and US mineral agreement that can be beneficial to both parties.
– Ukraine’s incentive is that in this way it would make the United States commit to defending Ukraine.
– Trump, on the other hand, has been incentive that he can say to the home audience that now a fee for the stupid politics that Joe Biden The administration practiced, Teivainen estimates.
For Ukraine, Trump’s efforts may also be for.
– This is the right way. It is a strategy that allows us to get potential security, and at the same time Ukraine earns money, a researcher Oleksandr Krajev said earlier to . Krajev, a United States, works at the Ukrainian Prisma Institute.
AFP, Reuters