Trump and Zelensky sign a vast partnership on access to minerals – Liberation

This time, it’s the right one. In Washington, the United States and Ukraine signed on the evening of Wednesday April 30 A vast partnership setting up an investment fund for the reconstruction of the country ravaged by the war. In particular, it gives Americans a Access to Ukrainian natural resources.

The Ukrainian Minister of Economy, Ioulia Svyrydenko, who made the trip across the Atlantic to sign the document, believes that the fund created with the United States « Will attract global investments to (sound) country ». The agreement with Washington will finance « Movers, oil and gas extraction projects »she said on Facebook. But Ukraine « Retains the entire property and control of these resources », including the basement, and it will be « The Ukrainian State which will determine where and what to extract »assured the minister.

« No debt, no help » granted before signing « Is not part of this agreement »for his part assured the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Chmygal, while the document must still be ratified by the Ukrainian parliament after its signature. However, it does not seem to include US security guarantees against Russia, however requested by Ukraine, a point on which insisted Volodymyr Zelensky.

According to the US Treasury, this agreement « Recognizes the important financial and material aid that the American people have provided to the defense of Ukraine since the large -scale invasion of Russia » – An expression very rarely used by Washington since the return to power of Donald Trump, who has repeatedly returned Ukraine and Russia back to back. Under the previous government of Joe Biden, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in assistance to Ukraine.

Donald Trump « Wants both parties to sit at the table, now, showing that the United States has an economic interest in Ukraineunderlined the American Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Fox News. It is a signal for Russian leaders. It is also a signal for the American people that we have a chance to participate, to obtain (…) compensation ” For the funding and weapons provided to Ukraine.

The draft agreement has been at the heart of tensions between Kyiv and Washington for weeks, whose support is crucial for Ukraine. A previous version of this text should have been signed during the visit of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House at the end of February, but his unprecedented altercation with its American counterpartunder the cameras, had precipitated his departure and canceled the signature of the agreement.

A new version, offered by Washington in March, had been deemed very unfavorable by Ukrainian and media deputies. Over the negotiations, this document could be transformed into a more acceptable version for Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials. An American Congress Democrat, Gregory Meeks, however denounced a « extortion » by Donald Trump.

The text sets up a « Investment fund to invest in reconstruction » of Ukraine, which will be funded and managed equally by the Ukrainians and the Americans. The quantity of mining riches contained in the Ukrainian soil remains unclear, most of these resources being unexploited, difficult to extract or de facto under Russian control, because they are in territories occupied by the Russian army.

Barely the agreement signed than Russia has led new strikes in Ukraine. A drone was launched in a residential area in Odessa, in southern Ukraine, killing two people and injuring five others, the governor of the region on Telegram said early Thursday morning. Simultaneously, explosions were heard in a district of the city of Soumy and anti -alerts triggered, among others, in the regions of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Cherniguiv, Soumy, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporijjia.