Ukraine, US closing in on deal over nation’s mineral resources

Ukraine is in the final stages of talks with the US over a deal to give Washington a cut of the country’s natural mineral resources, Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna said on Monday.

Both sides have been locked in intense negotiations over the agreement that US President Donald Trump’s administration sees as integral to its plan to broker a ceasefire in Russia’s three-year war on Ukraine.

The new draft has been almost agreed on and Ukraine is awaiting a reply from the US, according to a person familiar with the talks who asked not to be named as negotiations take place behind closed doors.

The US will commit to a “free, sovereign and secure” Ukraine and a “lasting peace” as part of the minerals deal, a draft text seen by Bloomberg showed. It will also agree to a “durable partnership” between Washington and Kyiv and signal an intent to invest in Ukraine, the text said.

The US will also say that those who acted adversely to Ukraine in the war should not benefit from its reconstruction. The text of the agreement wasn’t finalized and could still change, a person familiar with the matter said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters on Sunday that the US dropped its demand for Kyiv to commit to paying $500 billion from resource extraction to a fund as a form of repayment for US aid. Zelenskiy disputed the figure, saying it was closer to $90 billion and insisted that US military support must be part of any deal.

“The negotiations have been very constructive, with nearly all key details finalized,” Stefanishyna said in a post on X social media platform. “We hope both US and Ukraine leaders might sign and endorse it in Washington the soonest to showcase our commitment for decades to come.”

An additional detailed agreement is expected to be negotiated that will determined how the fund will be set up and operate, the person said. Both sides will work on it once the current deal is signed, according to the person.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent discussed the contours of the potential agreement on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures, saying the US can help propel Ukraine onto a “great growth trajectory.”

“The first part of this is a partnership between Ukraine and the US that involves strategic minerals, energy, and state owned enterprises, where we set up a partnership and we are only looking forward,” Bessent said.

Instead of a military guarantee, the US is offering an “economic security guarantee,” he added.

Zelenskiy earlier rejected a US argument that American companies doing business in Ukraine would itself serve as a form of security guarantee.

Ukraine still added language concerning formal US security guarantees into the minerals deal despite Washington dismissing this option, said a person familiar with the matter.

However, US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told Fox News on Monday that “security guarantees for Ukraine is a different conversation.”

(By Daryna Krasnolutska and Alex Wickham)