What is in the US-Ukraine minerals deal? | Russia-Ukraine war News

After months of tense negotiations – including one particularly fiery meeting in the White House Oval Office between United States President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February – Washington and Kyiv have finalised a long-awaited minerals deal.

The agreement, signed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, will give the US preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals and natural resources licences. In return, the US will provide financial and military assistance to Ukraine to help the country rebuild after the war.

The deal comes at a critical moment as the US had threatened to step away from its mediation effort to bring an end to the more than three-year conflict.

Trump, who has heavily promoted the deal, said it represents “payback” for the $350bn that he claims Washington has spent on supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

It is unclear how Trump has arrived at the figure of $350bn. Official figures from the US Department of Defense put total spending on Ukraine at $182.8bn between January 2022 and December 2024.

Regardless, in Kyiv, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal hailed the agreement as “good, equal and beneficial” for both sides.

Here’s what we know about the agreement so far.

What’s in the minerals deal?

Few details have been released about the precise terms of the deal, which was signed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko on Wednesday.

In a statement after the signing, Bessent said the “historic” economic partnership would send a clear signal to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process that ends what he called a “cruel and senseless war”.

Under the deal, the United States-Ukraine Reinvestment Fund will be established. This fund will be jointly managed by Ukraine and the US on an equal partnership basis.

Ukraine will maintain full ownership and control of the country’s resources and will determine what and where minerals may be extracted.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy said the US will contribute to the fund directly or through “new military assistance”, and Kyiv will contribute 50 percent of revenues from the exploitation of natural resources via new licences in the fields of critical materials, oil and gas. Svyrydenko suggested in a post on X that this could include air defence systems for Ukraine.

📌 How will the Fund work?

The United States will contribute to the Fund. In addition to direct financial contributions, it may also provide NEW assistance — for example, air defense systems for Ukraine.

— Yulia Svyrydenko (@Svyrydenko_Y) April 30, 2025

The Ukrainian statement said: “The agreement focuses on further, not past US military assistance,” meaning that Ukraine has no debt obligations to Washington – a key point in the lengthy negotiations between the two sides.

The statement added that Ukraine expects the fund’s profits and revenues to be reinvested into Ukraine for the first decade.

What minerals does Ukraine have?

According to data from Ukraine’s Economy Ministry, the country holds deposits of 22 of the 34 minerals classified as critical by the EU. Its critical minerals include precious and non-ferrous metals, ferroalloys and minerals such as titanium, zirconium, graphite and lithium.

Ukraine also holds reserves of rare earth elements (REEs), a group of 17 metallic minerals including lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, essential for high-tech applications in electronics, defence, aerospace and renewable energy.

According to the United Nations’ Russian-language news service, Ukraine’s critical mineral reserves made up approximately 5 percent of the global supply as of 2022.

Ukraine also accounts for 7 percent of the global production of titanium.

Its lithium reserves are largely untapped and considered one of Europe’s largest, at an estimated 500,000 tonnes.

Is this a good deal for Ukraine?

Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan said the deal can be viewed as a “diplomatic win” for Ukraine.

This is largely because Trump had initially insisted that Ukraine must pay back the $350bn he claims the administration of his predecessor, Joe Biden, had spent on the country since the start of the war with Russia.

“Now, [repaying that amount] was something that the Ukrainians did not want to do, and over the past couple of months, they’ve pushed to get that removed from the deal,” Jordan commented from Washington, DC. “So in a way, it can be viewed as a significant victory for Ukraine that this deal is, as some are putting it, a forward-looking deal, and not one that is looking back to the previous prosecution and financing of Ukraine’s war against Russia.”

Other analysts also noted that while the negotiations began with the US’s desire for access to Ukraine’s minerals, they have since morphed into a broader investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

“Ukraine seems to have pulled off some seriously tough negotiating with the Trump administration,” wrote Shelby Magid, the deputy director of the Eurasia Center in the Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank. “Past proposals from Washington reportedly saw the United States taking partial or total ownership of broad swaths of Ukraine’s natural resources and infrastructure… Now, Ukraine retains full ownership of its assets and has turned the deal into a joint investment fund toward the country’s future reconstruction, with only future – not past – US assistance to Ukraine counting as a contribution to the fund.”

Does the deal include US security guarantees?

No. However, under pressure from the US to make peace with Russia, President Zelenskyy has insisted that Ukraine will not enter peace talks until it has security guarantees against another war occurring in the future.

While the US-Ukraine minerals deal does not include such guarantees, analysts say it reopens the door to military assistance from Washington to Kyiv.

“It’s not a security guarantee,” said Anatol Lieven, the director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “This does not say – and Trump would never offer – to send US troops to defend Ukraine, and Trump has refused to back up European proposals to send European troops to Ukraine. But what it does if it’s implemented … it ensures that the US will remain interested in Ukraine,” he told Al Jazeera.

Lieven said the deal means the US “will feel it has a stake in Ukraine”.

“And although that’s not a security guarantee, it certainly ought to be a deterrent to future Russian aggression, because it would mean that if the Russians did launch a new war, the US would certainly impose severe sanctions and would aid Ukraine militarily,” he added.

What happens next?

While the Ukrainian cabinet has approved the agreement, it still needs to be ratified by the parliament.

But more importantly, Lieven said, there needs to be peace for the deal to take effect.

“This is about private investment. The money that goes into Ukraine to develop these minerals will be private. It won’t be US state money. And of course that raises the question of whether private investors will actually see an economic motive to invest, especially given the risks involved,” he said.

“So I think this is more of a diplomatic win for Ukraine. It’s not necessarily an economic win for Ukraine.”