President Donald Trump suggested that Ukraine is starting to offer critical minerals in the United States in exchange for military aid, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy apparently welcomed the idea.
“We put hundreds of billions of dollars. They have large rare land. And I want the safety of rare earths, and they are ready to do (that),” Trump told the White House on Monday, in one Sign that it can be opened for continuous aid in the country ravaged by war.
Zelenskyy told journalists on Tuesday that Ukraine was open to an “investment” of “partners who help us defend our land and push the enemy with their weapons, their presence and their packets of sanctions”.
“And it’s absolutely fair,” he added.
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President Donald Trump suggested that Ukraine is starting to offer critical minerals in the United States in exchange for military aid, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy apparently welcomed the idea. (Reuters / Carlos Barria)
Zelenskyy had tried to develop unexploited resources, offering tax reductions and investment rights to external entities seeking to exploit minerals in 2021, before the start of the war. The Ukrainian leader launched the exploitation of these minerals as part of the victory plan he wrote last year and launched American legislators.
Ukraine has strategic reserves of titanium, lithium, graphite and uranium, but a large part of its critical minerals are currently in areas under occupation by Russia. Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipropetrovsk are all the richest regions in minerals, which means that Ukraine should resume the territory to get them out.
Zelenskyy revealed that Ukrainian leaders had contacts with US officials, including Keith Kellogg, the American special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, and a while nail.
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Zelenskyy apparently agreed with the suggestion of Trump’s rare earth minerals. (Reuters / Alina Smutko)
“We have work dates when the American team is coming. The dates and the composition are coordinated at the moment. We are waiting for the team and will work together,” said Zelenskyy.
The congress approved about $ 175 billion in Ukraine aid – made up of military and economic assistance – since the invasion of Russia in February 2022.
Russia has supervised the Trump idea as proof that the United States no longer wanted to give free help to Ukraine-but suggested that they prefer that the United States offered no help to Ukraine.
Ukraine has been fighting against the invasion of Russia since February 2022. (Reuters / Ivan Antypenko)
“If we call things as they are, it is a proposal to buy aid – in other words, not to give it unconditionally, or for other reasons, but specifically to provide it on A commercial base “,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists Tuesday.
“It would be preferable, of course, that the aid is not provided at all, because it would contribute at the end of this conflict,” he added.
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The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the suggestion of Trump “very selfish, very self-centered”, and said that Ukraine would need his resources to finance the post-war reconstruction.
China is by far the largest producer of rare earth minerals, used in smartphones, electric vehicles, household appliances and even cancer drugs. It represents around 70% of world production.
