OPINION: Ukraine - All That Glitters is Not Gold

Reports over the last days suggest that Ukraine has finally agreed to sign Trump’s Ukraine rare earth deal, and Zelensky will meet with Trump at the WH on Friday to initial an agreement.

The initiative for the Trump rare earth deal initially came from the Ukrainian side as a way to lure in Trump to somehow commit to continued support to Ukraine.

I initially thought this was genius from the Ukrainian side, but Kyiv began to lose control of the project as the Trump side’s enthusiasm and scent for the mother of all deals (for the US) got the better of them - they sensed I think weakness and even desperation on the Ukrainian side and sought to exploit this to the full.

I think that is what we ended up with with the document that Scott Bessent ended up taking to Kyiv and has now been leaked to the media. This was all about the US reaping all the future benefits of a potential peace deal for Ukraine but without actually committing a thing at all to ensure a viable peace - no financial, military and security guarantees.

The Ukrainians were I think shocked at the brazenness (scope in terms of US access to Ukraine’s current and future minerals wealth) of the text of the initial document and frankly doubted that it was implementable in Ukraine or internationally. They asked for time to rethink the document, and that has been the to and forth over the past few weeks.

But in rejecting the initial US offer, Ukraine seemed to offend the Trump administration and then obviously we had the PR disaster for Ukraine with Trump accusing Zelensky of being a dictator - what for rejecting a deal that was so blatantly one sided in favour of the US, and bringing little or no benefit to Ukraine?

Other Topics of Interest

Ukraine Cabinet Says Ministers Can Sign US Minerals Accord

Zelensky is expected in Washington on Friday to oversee the signing of the accord and meet with Trump to discuss further US support for Ukraine.

The war of words with the Trump administration became so bad that I think many in Kyiv worried that the mineral earths deal could have proven pretty terminal in terms of the future relationship with Trump, and D.C. Kyiv has since worked tiredlessly to present Trump with some kind of PR win - a $500 billion rare earths deal, but at the same time limiting the longer term damage to Ukraine in terms of giving the US a blank cheque in effect over its mineral resources.

So the authorities in Kyiv have now put together a document that sets some limits on the payback to the US, albeit they have still failed to get the US to detail what exactly the US puts on the table - still no commitments to provide Ukraine with specific security guarantees, no specific commitments in terms of future financial or military support.

The document vaguely refers to US support to others providing security guarantees to Ukraine but then this begs the question of why the US is being lined up for all the future benefits/returns when it is the Europeans who are likely to be on the hook now for specific security guarantees for Ukraine. What is Ukraine and Europe buying from the US for this deal exactly? That it does not go into a full-blown alliance with Russia?

See below for reported text of the new deal.

I guess for Zelensky and Ukraine, this revised deal helps tone down the war of words with the Trump administration. It could potentially ease the way to the continued supply of US financing and munitions for Ukraine’s war effort - or at least perhaps reduces the chances of all this support being stopped immediately.

It also gives Zelensky the potential of some quality time in the WH with Trump, before a potential Trump - Putin meeting, and time which can be used to continue to impress on Trump the value to the US of allies and partners like Ukraine, and Europe in addition.

The problem though is that this deal still leaves the issue of specific security guarantees for Ukraine unaddressed and without those assurances any peace will not be sustainable, and neither will Ukraine’s future economic, social and political development.

Actually, this deal is not worth the paper it is written on without those very same assurances. No US entity will invest in Ukraine unless it feels that Ukraine is secure from future attack from Russia, which it will not be without these very same security guarantees.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post. 

Reprinted from the author’s @tashecon blog. See the original here.