Think the deal announced between Kyiv and Washington regarding Ukraine’s valuable rare minerals is a big deal?
Read between the lines. Or the fine print. Or both.
The agreement -- technically a framework for a deal, not an actual legally binding contract -- was hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump as a “very big deal,” and he said it would “recoup” some of the billions of dollars of weaponry and aid Washington has provided Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s all-out invasion.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was scheduled to be in Washington on February 28 to sign the papers, described it as "framework agreement” and said it would help ensure U.S. support for Ukraine’s continued fight.
"This deal could be a great success, or it could pass quietly,” Zelenskyy told a news conference on February 26. “And big success depends on our conversation with President Trump."
"It is important for me and all of us in the world that America's assistance is not stopped,” he said.
At the heart of the agreement – 17 clauses, four pages in English and Ukrainian, signatures of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko – is a proposed joint fund, that will be financed by future revenues from extraction of valuable minerals in Ukraine’s subsoils.
But the agreement is just an intention to set up the fund, not its actual legal establishment, experts noted. It’s unclear when exactly that will happen. That also means there’s still plenty of wiggle room about how it will actually look.
The framework also talks about future revenues, rather than current income streams, which appears to compartmentalize income from entities like Naftogaz. The state energy giant contributes as much as 15 percent of the government’s budget.
It also stipulates that Kyiv is expected to contribute 50 percent of revenues from future state-run resource projects into the fund.
Money from the fund will be targeted at projects inside Ukraine: “to increase the development, processing and monetization of all public and private Ukrainian assets including, but not limited to, deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials, infrastructure, ports, and state-owned enterprise.”
That’s a change from previous drafts, which had initially said the money would go toward paying for U.S. weapons and aid, something Zelenskyy had objected to. Moreover, it will take years before those sorts of infrastructure projects can be realized – possibly long after Trump is out of office.
“The deal is far too vague to have any economic meaning while Ukraine is still at war and for the foreseeable future thereafter,” said Maximilian Hess, a political risk analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based think tank.
“But if it does give Trump the headline win that he desires and sees support for Ukraine continue, then it’s a very good deal for Ukraine,” he told RFE/RL.
Mykhaylo Samus, who directs the New Geopolitics Research Network in Kyiv, agreed that what’s most important is the final deal. In the meantime, he said, both Trump and Zelenskyy get to portray it as a win.
“From the Ukrainian side, it’s an attempt to stop this confrontation with the Trump administration,” Samus said. “For Trump, he wants to show he’s got a result. It means Trump could say ‘we’ve got compensation for our taxpayers [for supporting Ukraine]. It’s an attempt to say something to the American electorate: ‘You see we’ve got another a victory.'"
'Reasonable, Fair, Definitely Not Neocolonial Or Imperial'
Zelenskyy has a fraught history with Trump, going back to the first time Trump was impeached by U.S. lawmakers in 2019. (He was ultimately acquitted by the Senate.)
Since Trump’s return to the presidency, the Ukrainian leader has labored to ensure that backstory did not disrupt the supply of weaponry that his armed forces are desperate for. Trump has insulted Zelenskyy, called him a dictator, wrongly suggested that Ukraine started the war, and demanded a new presidential election as soon as possible.
Add to the mix: a powerful push within much of the Republican Party to pull back U.S. foreign aid commitments around the world.
Enter Ukraine’s minerals, both so-called rare earth minerals and other valuable metals, like lithium and titanium. Rare earth minerals are coveted for use in defense technologies, as well as things like batteries, computers, and mobile phones. Lithium is also a major component for batteries; titanium is used in airplane manufacturing, among other things.
Trump administration officials, who see the United States in competition with China for access to the valuable minerals, have prioritized locking down supplies. That’s why Greenland has been a priority.
As with the language in the agreement, there’s some question about exactly how much rare, valuable mineral wealth Ukraine has in the first place.
Ukraine's Geological Survey says the country has substantial amounts of rare earth and other valuable minerals; a good proportion of that is located in territories under Russian control, however.
Moreover, the U.S. Geological Survey suggests those reserves may be exaggerated. A research report by S&P Global also cast doubt on the Ukrainian estimates, saying they are based on decades-old surveys.
Ukraine’s lithium, titanium, and even uranium deposits are more established, as are its oil and gas holdings.
In a small victory for Zelenskyy and his negotiators, the agreement calls for the revenues in the Joint Reconstruction Fund to promote “the safety, security and prosperity of Ukraine”— although the deal says that will be defined only in the final fund agreement.
That’s a change from earlier drafts, and remarks by U.S. officials, who suggested the fund’s revenues would instead go toward repaying some of the costs of the U.S. supplied weaponry.
For observers, Ukrainian or otherwise, the deal is a small victory for both leaders.
“Economically, this is a solid opportunity to pull in outside capital—potentially generating several billion in reinvestment every year,” Natalia Shapoval, an economist with the Kyiv School of Economics, said in a post on X. “Politically, it’s a gamble: Zelenskyy’s administration is trusting that deeper economic ties might eventually yield better security commitments. For now, I would say, Ukraine proceeds with cautious optimism.”
Tomas Kopecny, the Czech government’s envoy for the reconstruction of Ukraine, called it a “success of diplomatic negotiations for both countries.”
“The deal itself, I find reasonable, fair, definitely not neocolonial or imperial,” he told RFE/RL. “The deal itself is basically a way how to make American enterprises and American business and American government interested in the reconstruction of Ukraine not only on paper, but also through concrete financial and investment schemes.”
No Security Guarantees
The Zelenskyy government – with long memories of the failed 1994 Budapest Memorandum fresh in their minds – has long hammered on the need for security guarantees, to help avert any future Russian aggression.
But any obligation committing Washington to Ukraine’s protection or security is a major non-starter for the Trump administration.
However, in what one observer suggested was a diplomatic “masterpiece,"the agreement does in fact include a security clause – “The Government of the United States of America supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace” – but it doesn’t commit Washington to anything. Previous drafts did not include that clause.
Trump told reporters at the White House on February 25 that the agreement gives Ukraine "military equipment and the right to fight on, and originally, the right to fight.”
However, at a meeting with Cabinet officials a day later, he repeated his insistence that the United States would not be providing security guarantees.
“I’m not going to provide security guarantees beyond very much,” he said. “We’re going to have Europe do that.”
“I'm hoping and praying that this is what Trump needs as sort of the window dressing to say 'OK, we're going to help Ukraine now’,” said Ed Verona, an expert at the Atlantic Council in Washington who worked for energy and mining firms in Russia and also explored investments in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy “managed to get himself a better deal than the first two drafts that were submitted. And so he's keen to go to Washington, sign off and say, ‘OK, great,’” Verona told RFE/RL. “And hope that maybe this assuages Donald Trump. And Trump will be able to say, ‘See what I've got. They signed on this agreement. This is good for America.’”
