Ukraine to raise funs from sell of minerals

 The Telegraph:

Ukraine has agreed to a US-proposed deal for the rights to its mineral wealth after Donald Trump backed down on his most extreme demands.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is set to sign the deal in Washington DC as early as this Friday, bringing to an end a heated dispute with the US president over the terms of the pact.

The draft deal does not commit to Ukraine using the profits from its natural resources to repay the United States up to $500bn (£400bn), a key demand of Mr Trump, who has complained that the US “got nothing back” from its support of the Ukrainian war effort.

Instead, Kyiv will contribute 50 per cent of the funds raised by future developments of minerals and energy reserves to a joint fund that would be used to invest in projects in Ukraine.

The size of the US stake in the fund is not included in the deal but the Financial Times has reported that terms of “joint ownership” deals will be thrashed out in follow-up agreements.

The US will not gain the rights to any of Ukraine’s existing oil or gas production.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr Trump did not confirm that an agreement had been finalised but said Kyiv got $350 billion for the deal, the sum the president claims the US has already given to Kyiv, and “the right to fight on”.

“They’re very brave,” he said, but “without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time.”

He said that US supplies of weapons to Ukraine would continue “until we have a deal with Russia”.

Mr Trump also denied speaking to Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, about accessing minerals on Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine.

The US was open to striking a minerals deal with Russia, he added.

“I’d like to buy minerals on Russian land too if we can,” Mr Trump said.
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The war in Ukraine has exposed Russia's military weakness as well as its economic limitations.  Trump obviously sees some advantage in exploiting the Ukraine projects. 

See also:

Ukraine war in numbers: Full toll of Russia’s invasion, three years on

...

The UN Human Rights Office (OCHR) puts the number of civilian deaths at around 12,654, including at least 669 children. The UN says there have also been more than 29,000 civilians injured. Civilian casualties have increased by 30 per cent in the past year as a result of increased drone strikes, it adds.

An estimated 20,000 children have been abducted into Russia or Russian-occupied territory since the start of 2022, separated from their families and country. An investigation by The Independent suggests that Ukrainian children have been sent to dozens of re-education camps, where behaviour is abusive and children sleep with barred windows.

Earlier this month, Kyiv estimated the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed topped 45,000, with 380,000 wounded and tens of thousands more missing in action.

Russia has not provided figures on the number of soldiers who have died. A collaboration between BBC Russia and Mediazona identified the names of over 90,000 Russian soldiers who they estimate to have been killed, as of January this year. The Ukraine Armed Forces claim a far higher number, suggesting around 854,000 Russian casualties.
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And:

 Zelensky agrees to US minerals deal after Trump rows back demands