February 26, 2025
The New York Times reports (archived) that "Ukraine has agreed to turn over the revenue from some of its mineral resources to the United States".
Ukraine will get nothing of value in return for it. The (former) Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski is expected to visit the White House of Friday to submit to the extraordinary extortion of his country.
The deal is imposed indentured servitude at scale:
a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as payment for some good or service (e.g. travel), purported eventual compensation, or debt repayment. An indenture may also be imposed involuntarily as a judicial punishment. The practice has been compared to the similar institution of slavery, although there are differences.
Ukraine is expected to get nothing, except more war, from this agreement. As Ted Snider describes it:
Normally, it is the country that defeated you in war, and not the country that defended you, that pillages you after the war. Unfortunately for Ukraine, its biggest military defender is set to pillage its resources as the two countries have now signed a minerals agreement after Trump warned that a refusal to sign would have led to “a lot of problems” for Ukraine.Many mistakes have been made in the war over Ukraine’s minerals: Zelensky may have made a mistake in his strategy, and Trump may be mistaken in facts.
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[T]he ones who will suffer from the American pillaging of Ukraine will be the people of Ukraine. All of that revenue that will be exported out of the country is money that could now be spent on defense and later spent on rebuilding the tattered economy and reconstructing the shattered nation.
Ukrainian media just published the full text of the agreement. Strana summarizes it as follows (machine translation):
The main thing that becomes clear from the published draft agreement:
- It does not guarantee the security of Ukraine from the United States, as Vladimir Zelensky insisted. Security guarantees are mentioned only once: "The United States Government supports Ukraine's efforts to obtain the security guarantees necessary to create a lasting peace." That is, it is not about providing security guarantees, but about "supporting Ukraine's efforts" to obtain them. Moreover, the logic of the text implies that these guarantees should be given by someone other than the United States, otherwise it would look strange that Washington supports efforts to obtain guarantees from itself.
- The text does not specify who and how will manage the work of the fund, which will receive funds from revenues from the development of Ukrainian deposits. As stated, this will be written out in a separate agreement on the fund, which has not yet been prepared and must be ratified by the parliament. However, it is stipulated that the management will be joint, as well as the content, and "the powers of representatives of the US government in the decision-making process will be within the limits permitted by the current legislation of the United States." That is, the American fund managers will operate in their own jurisdiction, and not in the Ukrainian one.
- The Fund will receive income from the future monetization of all relevant natural resource assets that are state-owned by Ukraine-regardless of whether they are directly or indirectly owned by the state. It is stipulated that we are not talking about income from already operating enterprises.
- Ukraine will "contribute to the fund 50% of all proceeds received from the future monetization of all relevant natural resource assets," no matter what ownership they are. The United States will also contribute.
- Contributions made to the fund will be reinvested in Ukraine at least once a year. The amount of reinvestment is not specified. Its procedure will be defined in the future agreement on the fund.
There are so many vague points in the agreement that it is hard to evaluate its consequences.
I find it difficult to imagine that any Ukrainian parliament or its fascists 'nationalists' will agree to it:
In their eagerness to align with Western powers, Ukrainian officials are effectively endorsing policies that undermine the nation’s autonomy. Rather than pursuing an independent economic strategy, Ukraine continues to adopt arrangements that leave it vulnerable to external western manipulation.
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This deal highlights the dangers of Ukraine’s continued reliance on Western aid. True national strength and independence cannot be achieved through mechanisms that strip away a country’s natural wealth and leave it perpetually indebted to external powers.
It is also doubtful that the agreement will withstand legal challenges. There are serious rumors that Zelenski had already sold Ukraine's minerals to Britain.
In other news the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Lavrov has (again) rejected the stationing of any European 'peacekeepers' in Ukraine:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow could not consider "any options" for European peacekeepers being sent to Ukraine and that the idea was aimed at fuelling the conflict and making it harder to de-escalate.
President Macron of France and Prime Minister Starmer of Great Britain have said that they were willing to deploy their forces in Ukraine. Both however have asked for U.S. backing which the Trump administration is unlike to offer. Russia will in any case be hostile to it:
Lavrov, who has previously called the proposal "unacceptable," set out Moscow's objections to any deployment in some of the strongest terms yet, removing any doubt about the matter after Trump's suggestion that Putin had come round to the idea."We cannot consider any options" when it comes to European peacekeepers, he said during a visit to Qatar.
By pressing for the agreement, instead of taking the Russian offer for access to minerals, Trump has committed himself to continue the war in Ukraine.
Michael Tracey @mtracey - 23:39 UTC · Feb 25, 2025After Ukraine agrees to the mineral "deal," Trump says in return Ukraine receives "the right to fight on." He boasts that he was the one who first gave Javelins to Ukraine, which wiped out a lot of Russian tanks. He says US weapons could continue to flow to Ukraine "for awhile"
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It will lead to the failure of his peace initiative.
The war Ukraine is now destined to become Trump's Vietnam.
Posted by b on February 26, 2025 at 14:41 UTC | Permalink