Surprise in the agreement aimed at Ukraine's minerals

Who will sign? Ukrainian government announced on Thursday that the Minister of Economy or Foreign reports AFP.

This agreement would be signed during the visit in the US on Friday the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski, who will have a meeting with his American counterpart Donald Trump, who has made great pressure on Kiev to accept this agreement that offers the United States preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources.

On the website of the Kiev government was published an official order that designates either the Minister of Economy, Iulia Sviridenko or the Foreign Minister, Andrii Sîbiga, to sign what the Ukrainian government calls 'the bilateral agreement on establishing the rules and conditions for the investment fund for the reconstruction' of Ukraine.

The details of the agreement are still vague. The understanding provides for the creation of an American-Ukrainian fund in which Ukraine will pour a share-some officials talk about a 50% share-from the revenues resulting from the exploitation of Ukrainian mineral resources, respectively rare lands, but also oil and other mineral resources.

While Ukrainian officials insist on the idea that it is a fund for the 'reconstruction' of post-war Ukraine, Trump pursues two objectives through this agreement, respectively that the US will achieve a form of compensation for the military and economic aid offered so far in Ukraine in the war with Russia and a preferential access to the Ukrainian mineral resources, how the technology, as lithium or graphite ores. However, these Ukraine resources covered by Trump are mostly difficult to exploit, their extraction requires considerable investments or are in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.

Zelenski rejected a first version of the agreement, considering it far too unfavorable to Ukraine, both by the absence of security guarantees and by forcing Ukraine to recognize debts that burdened 'ten generations of Ukrainians'. The last variant, on which Zelenski understood that he will try to negotiate with Trump on Friday, no longer obliges Kiev to recognize those debts to the aid account received from the US, but leaves the security guarantees.

The US president said, however, that he will not provide Ukraine Security guarantees, estimating that Europeans should do this, and also appreciated that the agreement for the exploitation of resources is' a kind of automatic security for Ukraine, as American workers will be present in this country for the exploitation of this country.

Another unclear issue related to this agreement concerns the continuation of the American military aid for Ukraine, while the Russian army continues its offensive. Zelenski said he would ask Trump on Friday if the United States would provide weapons and ammunition of Ukraine or at least if it can buy them from the US. Trump has previously said that he agrees that European countries buy weapons and ammunition for the Ukrainian army from the US. Since the US president was invested on January 20, the United States has not announced any military aid package for Ukraine in addition to those approved by the administration of former President Joe Biden.

According to a high -ranking person in the Trump administration, quoted by Reuters on Thursday, the Ukrainian mineral resource exploitation agreement does not include any guarantee on the future financing of Ukraine's war effort.