President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the United States had provided Kyiv with an initial draft of a partnership agreement that would involve investments in mining Ukraine’s mineral resources and continued military assistance.
The announcement came following Zelenskyy’s meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv on 12 February 2024.
“We received the first draft of the relevant document about the partnership between our countries today,” Zelenskyy stated, adding that Ukraine would “do everything to ensure our teams can truly reach an agreement and sign this document very quickly.”
The Ukrainian President emphasized the importance of examining all details of the document before or during the Munich Conference to finalize agreements at appropriate levels.
Treasury Secretary Bessent told journalists that the document represents part of continued US guarantees to Ukrainians and serves as “an important signal to Russian leadership that we stand together” in economic cooperation with Ukraine.
This development follows last week’s statement by US President Donald Trump expressing interest in securing an agreement with Ukraine regarding rare earth metals and other resources in exchange for weapons supplies. Trump had previously indicated that Kyiv “agreed in principle” to a deal valued at $500 billion.
Ukraine possesses significant deposits of uranium and several critical minerals, including titanium, lithium, and graphite. Ukrainian authorities estimate these resources could be worth trillions of dollars.
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