The minerals deal set to be signed between Ukraine and the United States will mark the first official agreement in Donald Trump’s efforts to end three years of war with Russia.
The historic document has been described as the basis for a “newinternational order” by Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister.
We are publishing the full text of the draft deal below, with our own analysis of what the key points mean for the future of Ukraine and the world.
When Trump first mooted a US-Ukraine minerals deal, he claimed Washington was owed US$500 billion ($877b) worth of Ukraine’s resources in exchange for past military support to defend against the Russian invasion. Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, was eventually dispatched to Kyiv to open talks.
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped for a rare earths agreement to guarantee future US military support. He rejected a first draft partially because of a lack of security guarantees.
By agreeing to back a “free, sovereign and secure Ukraine”, the US is offering a compromise that does not commit directly to protecting the country.
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This language represents a point of order, making it clear that the war with Russia could have been avoided.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly raised the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which promised US, UK, French and Russian security guarantees for Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv giving up its arsenal of Soviet-inherited nuclear weapons.
Neither Washington, London nor Paris offered sufficient guarantees to prevent Russia’s 2014 incursion into the Donbas or its full-scale invasion eight years later.
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This is the first time the documents allude to minerals that could be exploited under a peace deal.
The country is estimated to hold 10% of the world’s reserves of lithium, used in the production of batteries. Two of Ukraine’s largest lithium deposits are currently in Russian-held territories and Vladimir Putin has signalled he wants in on any minerals deal in areas his forces occupy.
This section of the deal could serve as a nod that Russia must not benefit from the US-Ukraine deal – a win for Ukraine in early negotiations.
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At the heart of the deal is the creation of a “Reconstruction Investment Fund” for Ukraine to be financed through the joint exploration of Ukraine’s untapped natural resources.
The term “joint ownership” is used in this framework agreement, but one of the main questions is how large Washington’s stake in the fund will be and how it will make money from it.
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It is not clear what either side will gain from the agreement, but it is stipulated that decisions pertaining to the fund cannot be taken without either Kyiv’s or Washington’s consent. This is a minor victory for the Ukrainians, who were insisting that they would not sign a “colonial” treaty giving the US full rights and ownership.
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This is where we get into the nitty-gritty.
It commits Ukraine to giving half of all profits from future mining and extraction to the joint fund. What is interesting here is the scope of the agreement has grown from rare earths and minerals to include other hydrocarbons, such as oil and natural gas, as well as the infrastructure linked to it, such as ports used to export the resources.
Ukraine secured guarantees that Trump, or any other future US President, will not be able to tap into the profits of resources that are already being mined. The deal is limited to future profits only.
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Before it emerged that Kyiv had agreed to the US offer, a top European Union official said Brussels had a similar “win-win” proposal for sharing Ukraine’s minerals already on the table.
Language in the draft agreement here attempts to ensure that Kyiv’s natural resources will be ring-fenced for America, keeping others, such as the EU, out of the equation.
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A crucial element of the agreement is how it will deal with international sanctions on Russia.
While the details of this part are still to be negotiated, there is already a desire here that the reconstruction fund should not be allowed to get around any of the punitive measures slapped on Moscow as a result of Putin’s invasion.
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This is perhaps the most important part of the text. It is the closest thing in writing so far to a promise from the US to protect Ukraine from future Russian aggression.
Zelenskyy had rejected previous iterations of the deal because they did not contain explicit pledges of “security guarantees” from the US in exchange for the minerals in Ukraine. But this new wording is just a hint in that direction, and not yet a cast-iron one.
The Ukrainian President told a press conference on Wednesday the document did not contain “concrete steps on security guarantees” because they were still to be negotiated between the US and Europe.
But hope is not lost, with Zelenskyy saying the agreement provides a “framework” that could be “part of future security guarantees”. He said he would discuss this with Trump, when they are expected to meet to sign the deal in Washington on Friday.
