The US–Ukraine critical minerals deal provides no security guarantees but helps normalize diplomatic dialogue between Kyiv and Washington – Mariia Zolkina
Commentary by Mariia Zolkina, Head of the "Regional Security and Conflict Studies" Department at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and an Associate Fellow at LSE Ideas, the leading foreign policy think tank at the London School of Economics, to the Azerbaijani English-language news and analysis YouTube channel AnewZ (from 11:00 min.):
US-Ukraine mineral deal signed appeared to be the best possible outcome of the tense negotiations, and is definitely a big victory of Ukraine’s negotiation team. Possible outcome of what has started as a pressure on Ukraine doesn’t mean the best or the most favorable outcome, however.
Most of the critical risks for Ukraine were avoided, though the story isn’t over yet. Significant details are to be defined and included in the following technical agreements. But among the most important fixed in the deal issues are:
- Ukraine preserves (as it must be) all its sovereign rights on its rare and critical resources;
- deal will apply to new licenses and won’t harm any existing projects;
- deal defines EU membership requirements’ priority if there is a contradiction between Fund functioning and EU integration.
At the same time, let’s not overestimate this deal impact on the war ending with Russia. This deal doesn’t have any capacity to prevent future Russia attacks. This doesn’t bring more optimism about US security guarantees - there isn’t any. But still, this deal normalize diplomatic dialogue between Ukraine and USA, on the hand, and can serve as a “victory” for Trump on Ukraine-related track, cause his tactics in appeasing Russia hasn’t brought any change yet.
