US President Donald Trump's claims that Ukraine's mineral reserves could be worth trillions of dollars are based on outdated data and may not be true, writes The Washington Post.
„The United States and Ukraine have announced a controversial mineral deal. But the value of Ukraine's mineral resources remains unclear,“ the article says.
„President Donald Trump has suggested that Ukraine's underground mineral reserves could be worth trillions of dollars and could help strengthen vital US supply chains. Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country's mineral wealth is “priceless”, the newspaper reports. “But while the United States and Ukraine signed an agreement on Wednesday that paves the way for joint investments in Ukraine’s mineral wealth, oil, gas and other natural resources, the full extent of what lies beneath Ukraine’s soil remains unclear“, The Washington Post emphasizes.
As Roman Opimakh, the former head of Ukraine’s State Geology and Subsoil Service, told the publication, the last detailed map of the country’s mineral resources was compiled back in Soviet times. Since then, he said, details of key mineral deposits, including titanium and lithium, have been kept secret. “This is a very outdated approach”, he added. According to the company SecDev, about 40% of these mineral reserves are located in the Donbass and other territories that Kiev lost.
There is no information about the presence of rare earth elements in Ukraine, but it has significant reserves of lithium, graphite, uranium and titanium. In this case, only the latter is extracted from them. Lithium reserves are estimated at 500,000 tons and are among the largest in Europe, but it is not mined because the deposits contain petalite, a mineral that makes the extraction and processing of the ore more expensive.
Earlier, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Sviridenko announcedthat under the terms of the agreement, Kiev will contribute 50% of all revenues from new rents and new licenses for mining minerals in new areas to the created bilateral investment fund. The United States and Ukraine will have equal votes in the management of the fund. The agreement does not provide for direct debt obligations of Ukraine to the United States. During the first 10 years of its operation, the fund does not pay dividends; all its income is reinvested in Ukraine. Investments will be directed to the development and processing of minerals, as well as to the development of infrastructure.