Kyiv hopes agreement on jointly exploring resources will improve relations with Trump administration
Christopher Miller, Alec Russell and Gideon Rachman
February 25, 2025
Financial Times
Kyiv has agreed terms with Washington on a minerals deal that Ukrainian officials hope will improve relations with the Trump administration and pave the way for a long-term US security commitment.
Ukrainian officials said Kyiv was ready to sign the agreement on jointly developing its mineral resources, including oil and gas, after the US dropped demands for a right to $500bn in potential revenue from the deal.
Although the text lacks explicit security guarantees, the officials argued they had negotiated far more favourable terms and depicted the deal as a way of broadening the relationship with the US to shore up Ukraine’s prospects after three years of war. “The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, told the Financial Times on Tuesday.
A Ukrainian official with knowledge of the matter said president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was planning to travel to Washington on Friday to see Donald Trump and formalise the deal. On Tuesday, the US president appeared to confirm his Ukrainian counterpart’s visit, saying: “I hear that [Zelenskyy is] coming on Friday. Certainly it’s OK with me if he’d like to.”
The original draft agreement’s highly onerous terms — which Trump presented as a means of Ukraine repaying the US for military and financial aid since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion — provoked outrage in Kyiv and other European capitals.
After Zelenskyy rejected that initial text last week, Trump called him a “dictator” and appeared to blame Ukraine for starting the war.
The final version of the agreement, dated February 25 and seen by the FT, would establish a fund into which Ukraine would contribute 50 per cent of proceeds from the “future monetisation” of state-owned mineral resources, including oil and gas, and associated logistics. The fund would also be able to invest in projects in Ukraine.
Ukraine has large underground deposits of critical minerals, including lithium, graphite, cobalt, titanium and rare earths such as scandium, that are essential for an array of industries from defence to electric vehicles.
The agreement excludes mineral resources that already contribute to Ukrainian government coffers, meaning it would not cover the existing activities of Naftogaz or Ukrnafta, Ukraine’s
largest gas and oil producers. However, it omits any reference to US security guarantees, which Kyiv had originally insisted on in return for agreeing to the deal. It also leaves crucial questions such as the size of the US stake in the fund and the terms of “joint ownership” deals to be thrashed out in follow-up agreements.
After three years in which the US was Kyiv’s primary military aid donor, Trump has overturned Washington’s policy by opening bilateral talks with Russia, without any European allies or Ukraine at the table. Ukrainian officials said the deal had been approved by the justice, economy and foreign ministers.
The Trump administration’s initial sweeping proposal called for a reconstruction investment fund in which the US “maintains 100 per cent financial interest”.
Ukraine would contribute 50 per cent of the fund’s revenue from mineral resources extraction, including oil and gas and associated infrastructure, up to a maximum of $500bn. Those terms, described as unacceptable by Ukrainian officials, have been removed from the final draft.
The mandate for the fund to invest in Ukraine is a further change Kyiv had sought. The document states the US will back Ukraine’s economic development into the future.
Ukrainian officials added the deal was just a “framework agreement” and that no revenue would change hands until the fund was in place, allowing them time to iron out any potential disagreements. Among the outstanding issues is to agree the jurisdiction of the agreement.
Zelenskyy’s government will also have to seek approval from Ukraine’s parliament, where opposition MPs have signalled they will at the very least have a heated debate before ratifying such a deal.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday it was “critical that this deal is signed”, though she did not provide an update on the talks.
Gideon Rachman became chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times in July 2006. He joined the FT after a 15-year career at The Economist, which included spells as a foreign correspondent in Brussels, Washington and Bangkok. He also edited The Economist’s business and Asia sections. His particular interests include American foreign policy, the European Union and globalisation.
Alec Russell is the FT’s Foreign Editor, responsible for overseeing our network of foreign correspondents and our coverage of great global themes. He was the editor of FT Weekend from 2016-2023. During his tenure, it won a series of awards including European weekend newspaper of the year and UK weekend newspaper of the year. He also launched the FTWeekend festival in London and then in Washington. He was previously the FT’s news editor and also the opinion editor. A long-time former foreign correspondent, he has reported from Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Washington, winning a number of awards. He has written three books. The latest is After Mandela: the battle for the soul of South Africa.
Christopher Miller writes about Ukraine for the FT. He has reported from Ukraine since 2010, and was previously a world and national security reporter for POLITICO and a correspondent for BuzzFeed News. Author of “The War Came To Us: Life And Death In Ukraine”, Christopher joined the FT in October 2022.