Trump Vs. Zelensky, Round 2: Will There Be a Minerals Deal?

After Friday's imbroglio at the White House, which ended up with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky being unceremoniously tossed out on his ear, things may finally be coming back around. There are indications now that the centerpiece of the Trump/Zelensky talks, an economic development deal over Ukraine's mineral resources, may be signed as early as Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and Ukraine plan to sign a much-debated minerals deal, four sources said on Tuesday, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week's disastrous Oval Office clash with Trump was "regrettable."
Trump has told advisers he wants to announce the agreement in a major address he will give to Congress on Tuesday evening, three of the sources said. They cautioned that the deal had yet to be signed and the situation could change.
The White House, Ukraine's presidential administration in Kyiv and the Ukrainian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It is belaboring the obvious to note that President Trump would like to be able to announce the successful approval of this agreement at his (Totally Not The) State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

President Donald Trump has told his advisers that he wants to announce the agreement in his address to Congress Tuesday evening, three of the sources said, cautioning that the deal had yet to be signed and the situation could change.

The minerals deal would result in economic ties between the United States and Ukraine that, if the agreement is properly developed, result in Russia's aggression suddenly becoming a lot more complicated. But there's a catch: Ukraine and the United States, agreement or no agreement, also face some serious complications in gaining access to those resources.

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Consider the implications of one or more American mining companies being involved in extracting and refining resources in Ukraine. Many, indeed most, of those deposits are in areas that are ostensibly part of Ukraine but are currently under Russian control.

The majority of Ukraine's rare earth mineral reserves are located in regions currently under Russian occupation, including Donetsk and Luhansk—which make up the Donbas—as well as Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Putin in 2014.
According to Forbes, approximately 70 percent of Ukraine's estimated $14.8 trillion in critical mineral resources are concentrated in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Luhansk. Russia currently controls a significant portion of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, collectively known as the Donbas.

Russia would have to be persuaded — one way or another — to vacate those areas, or at least to allow American companies access, and that last option is, to put it mildly, unlikely. But if that could be done, Russia would face an entirely new calculus in Ukraine. Ukraine would then not have a military alliance with America that Tsar Vladimir I could point to and claim American aggression, but the two nations would have an economic alliance. This would lead, presumably, to American workers — mining engineers and so forth — and American business resources in the area now occupied. Any new Russian incursion would run the risk of injuring or killing American civilians; that's another level of risk.

That is, if the Russians can be pushed out of those regions in the first place.

A mineral deal is worth doing if, for no other reason, to allow the United States to recoup some of the billions the Biden administration poured into Ukraine. But any long-term end to this conflict will only happen if the two parties, Russia and Ukraine, sit down and work out a deal. A mineral deal may prompt such a discussion. Then again, it might not. Tsar Vladimir I has wagered a lot on this misadventure and stands to lose everything, including possibly his life, should the Russian people perceive him as a failure.