Ukrainian strategic ores, including oil and gas, are at the heart of negotiations between Washington and kyiv. After weeks of pressure from the American president Donald Trump, senior Ukrainian officials announced that kyiv was ready to sign the joint development agreement of his mineral resources. The American president asked Ukraine to give him access to them to compensate for the billions of dollars in aid paid by the administration of his predecessor Joe Biden.
The unfavorable clauses withdrawn
According to a senior Ukrainian official who told AFP on Tuesday, February 25, that kyiv agreed to sign, the Americans “removed all the clauses that did not suit us, in particular the $ 500 billion” that minerals were supposed to report to the United States.
According to the Financial TimesUkrainian officials argued that they had negotiated much more favorable conditions and depict the agreement as a means of expanding relations with the United States to consolidate the prospects of Ukraine after three years of war. “The mineral agreement is only part of the table. We have repeatedly heard the US administration say that this is part of a wider table,” the economic newspaper Olha Stefanishyna, Vice Vice on Tuesday on Tuesday. -Premmer Minister and Minister of Justice of Ukraine, who led the negotiations.
A joint fund in Ukraine and America
Volodymyr Zelensky, who is scheduled to go to Washington on Friday, could sign the text on this occasion. “I heard that he came on Friday. It’s certainly ok for me. He would like to sign him with me, and I understand that – it’s a big deal, a very big deal,” said Donald Trump on Tuesday At the White House, interviewed on this subject, while the initial conditions of the very restrictive agreement had caused indignation to kyiv. The Ukrainian president had thus refused to sign a text that “ten generations of Ukrainians” will have to pay.
The final version of the agreement, dated February 24, would establish a fund in which Ukraine would contribute to 50 % of revenues from the “future monetization” of state mineral resources, including oil and gas , and associated logistics. Washington would jointly develop with Ukraine the mineral wealth and the income which would come from it would go in this newly created common fund. The vast initial proposal from the Trump administration called for an investment fund for reconstruction in which the United States “would keep 100 % of financial interests”.
The agreement nevertheless excludes the resources which already contribute to the Ukrainian state budget, which means that it will not cover the operations of Naftogaz and Ukrnaftta, the largest producers of oil and gas in the country. However, there are crucial questions to decide as the importance of American participation in the fund and the terms of the “condominium” agreements to be examined in the follow -up agreements. Karoline Leavitt, press secretary at the White House, said on Tuesday that it was “essential that this agreement was signed”.
According to the Ukrainian source, the agreement also omits any reference to American security guarantees that kyiv had initially required in exchange for his signature. The terms thus simply understand “a general clause which says that America will invest in a sovereign, stable and prosperous Ukraine, that it works for lasting peace and that America supports efforts to guarantee security”.