Ukrainian President Foludmir Zellinski announced on Sunday that Kiev and Washington are approaching an agreement on reaching natural resources in Ukraine for security assistance, while the American envoy expected to be signed within a week.
“We are making progress,” Zellinski said at a conference in Kiev, adding that Ukrainian and American officials discussed the agreement earlier Sunday.
Ukrainian commitment
For his part, the American envoy, Stephen Witkeov, confirmed to CNN: “I expect that this week’s agreement will be signed. now”.
He added that Zellinski: “We realize that we have made a lot and that this agreement should be signed.”
The recent developments come after the Ukrainian authorities announced on Sunday the existence of Ukrainian vital resources valued at about 350 billion dollars in the areas controlled by Russia.
Kiev resisted Trump’s calls to use Ukraine resources as compensation to the United States for the aid it received during the era of President Joe Biden, but large parts of the Ukraine resources base are located in the Industrial region of Donbas in the east of the country where Russia has taken control of lands and is still advancing.
“We have unfortunately information that about 350 billion dollars of these vital resources temporarily exists in the occupied region,” Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yulia Sferidko, told a press conference in Kiev.
She added that some statistics on these sediments are “old”, but estimates are based on geological surveying and data from open sources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9mjbosgkla
Guarantees
Zelinski seeks to obtain concrete security guarantees from Trump in exchange for making way for Washington to reach vital resources such as lithium, titinium, uranium, and rare ground minerals that are essential in electronics production.
Trump and his assistants have previously expressed their dissatisfaction with Zelinski’s unwillingness to sign an agreement in this regard.
The French Press Agency quoted a source in Ukraine as saying that the Ukrainian President is “unprepared” to agree to the current American demands.
However, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andrei Yermak, stressed on Sunday that the negotiations are proceeding with “natural”.
“No one has rejected anything. The natural process is ongoing. It can take one or several months,” Kiev said at a press conference in Kiev.
Trump’s statement
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States has approached an agreement with Kiev on the sharing of revenue from Ukrainian minerals as part of efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
“I think we are very close to reaching an agreement,” Trump said in front of the National Conservative Gathering, Harbor, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington.
He added that the United States wants to restore the billions of dollars that Washington provided to Ukraine in the form of military aid during its war against Russia, and said that Washington is asking rare minerals, oil, or “anything we can get.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct7bjzl9exq
- Ukraine occupies the undisputed lead in the European continent, as its territory includes 22 rarely out of 30 minerals used by the countries of the continent, and 50 minerals classified by the United States as “extreme importance”, with a total value of about 15 trillion dollars.
- Globally, Ukraine is fourth (alongside India, Brazil and Vietnam) in the volume of rare metal reserves, after China (68%of reserves), then America (12%), then Australia (5%).
- According to the “Forbes Ukraine” magazine, the country owns about 10% of the world’s reserves (and the largest of Europe’s reserves) of the lithium metal used in the production of batteries, with an estimated size of about 500 thousand tons.
- Ukraine has about 90 tons of zirconium used in jet engines.
- Ukraine is also among the 10 most prominent countries rich in titanium metal, used in the production of missiles, aircraft and ships, with a size of 2.3 thousand tons.
In general, the lands of Ukraine include 660 tons of vanadium, 90 tons of zirconium, 50 tons of nubium, 50 tons of cadmium, also 15 tons of tantalum, 5 tons of gallium, 1.8 tons of serum, as well as 1.5 tons of Andium , Ceinium pace, beanium home, 0.8 tons of Etrium, As well as half a ton for both telorium, scandium, gearmanium, and havhenium separately.
