Both US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky expressed their desire for an agreement to be signed between Washington and Kyiv for the exchange of American support with valuable Ukrainian minerals.
Indeed, Ukraine is one of the richest countries in Europe and Asia in terms of its abundance of rare minerals, primarily metals. However, despite the fact that Ukrainian territory hosts mineral resources worth trillions of dollars, such as lithium and titanium, a large portion of these minerals is located in areas currently controlled by Russian forces.
"I want to have their rare earths as a guarantee," said Trump from the Oval Office earlier this week, adding, "We have given hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earths, and I want to acquire them if they're willing to give them up."
It is certain that Trump's sudden interest in these minerals partly stems from the fact that China, the biggest enemy of the U.S. today, has countless such resources at its disposal.
Of course, it is worth noting that the American leader never specified which minerals he was referring to. Scientists believe that Ukraine has reserves of the 20 most critical minerals and metals on the planet, such as titanium and lithium.
Titanium is very important because it is used in huge quantities by defense companies to produce aircraft, vehicles, etc., while lithium is crucial for the manufacturing of microelectronics and batteries for electric vehicles.
According to the Kyiv Independent, Ukraine also possesses rarer earths, such as dysprosium, yttrium, lanthanum, and neodymium. The demand for these elements has skyrocketed in recent years because they are rare and are widely used in renewable energy systems, such as wind turbines.
It is no surprise, of course, that Russian officials categorically disagreed with the possibility of such an American-Ukrainian agreement.
Today, more than 50% of Ukraine's rare earths lie beneath the territories controlled by the Russian military. Russia is believed to have seized Ukrainian areas that contain minerals worth a total of $7.5 trillion. This includes metals and rarer elements found beneath the ground in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhia regions, and others.
