Ukraine, U.S. sign minerals deal, tying Trump to Kyiv

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States and Ukraine on Wednesday signed a minerals deal after a two-month delay, in what President Donald Trump’s administration called a new form of US commitment to Kyiv after the end of military aid.

Ukraine said it secured key interests after protracted negotiations, including full sovereignty over its own rare earths, which are vital for new technologies and largely untapped.

Trump had initially demanded rights to Ukraine’s mineral wealth as compensation for US weapons sent under former president Joe Biden after Russia invaded just over three years ago.

After initial hesitation, Ukraine has accepted a minerals accord as a way to secure long-term investment by the US, as Trump tries to drastically scale back its security commitments around the world.

Announcing the deal in Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it showed “both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.”

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said.

“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.”

The Treasury statement notably mentioned Russia’s “full-scale invasion” of Ukraine — diverging from the Trump administration’s usual formulation of a “conflict” for which Kyiv bears a large degree of responsibility.

In Kyiv, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said the agreement was “good, equal and beneficial.”

Shmygal said the two countries would establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund with each side having equal voting rights and Ukraine would retain “full control over its subsoil, infrastructure and natural resources.”

Meeting a key concern for Kyiv, he said Ukraine would not be asked to pay back any “debt” for billions of dollars in US support since Russia invaded in February 2022.

“The fund’s profits will be reinvested exclusively in Ukraine,” he said.

Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said the deal would finance mineral and oil and gas projects as well as “related infrastructure or processing.”

Trump had originally sought $500 billion in mineral wealth — around four times what the US has contributed to Ukraine since the war.

Trump has balked at offering security guarantees to Ukraine and has rejected its aspiration to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

But he said on Wednesday that a US presence on the ground would benefit Ukraine.

“The American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting.

Speaking later at a town hall with NewsNation, Trump said he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a recent meeting at the Vatican that signing the deal would be a “very good thing” because “Russia is much bigger and much stronger.”

Asked whether the minerals deal is going to “inhibit” Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Trump said “well, it could.”

Drone strike

Meanwhile, a Russian drone strike overnight killed at least two people and wounded 15 others in a residential area of Odesa, the Ukrainian emergency services said early Thursday.

“Unfortunately, two people died, according to preliminary information, another 15 people were injured,” the State Emergency Service of Ukraine posted on Telegram.

It described the attack as “massive” and said high-rise buildings, private houses, a supermarket, a school and cars were damaged.

More than 200 people were evacuated from one of the buildings, it added.

Explosions were also heard in the city of Sumy and air raid warnings were triggered in several places including Sumy, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia.

A Ukrainian drone strike on a market in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine on Thursday killed seven people, a Moscow-installed official said.

“Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a massive strike with FPV drones against civilians.... At least seven people have been killed and more than 20 injured,” Vladimir Saldo, governor of the Russian-occupied part of Kherson region wrote on Telegram, using the Russian spelling for the town’s name.

A photo released by the governor showed what appeared to be a body lying between two one-story buildings, one of which was damaged.

Saldo had also posted a video showing smoke rising from the market from another strike, claiming it was used to “finish off the survivors.”

Oleshky lies on the occupied bank of the Dnipro river and fell to Russian forces at the start of their 2022 offensive.