Mineral deal technical consultations between Ukraine and the Trump Administration regarding are scheduled to take place tomorrow, Friday, April 11, in Washington, D.C., with teams from Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Economy participating, as announced by Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna.
“I can’t go into detail just yet, as the meeting is set for tomorrow, but I’ll be able to provide comments afterwards,” Stefanishyna said during a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
“But I can confirm one thing for sure: nothing in the [mineral deal] can be agreed upon by Ukraine in such a way as to undermine the existing commitments that Ukraine has, including financial ones within the framework of the Ukraine Facility, macro-financial assistance, and cooperation with the IMF,” Stefanishyna said.
According to her, this new draft agreement, like the structuring of the previous agreement, was proposed by the United States, though she did not clarify that the framework was specifically crafted by the Trump executive branch administration.
Stefanishyna said that Ukraine is negotiating the mineral deal with the objective of accumulating resources for reinvestment in the country.
“The text presented to Ukraine does not fully reflect Ukraine’s approach, so our technical team will work on Friday to balance it, which will allow us to have very simple, clear principles on which the future text of the agreement will be based,” she said.
Russia Strikes 4 Districts in Dnipropetrovsk Region, Injuring 2
Stefanishyna said that the negotiating team views this agreement with the White House as a great opportunity that could really help Ukraine advance in this war.
Previously, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was never going to be pressured to simply give away its minerals, rare earth metals and fossil fuels without a fair split of the revenues, and that he was unhappy with the way it was initially handled.
Zelensky was vocally critical on Wednesday about the way that Trump’s team, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, demanded he sign the first draft of the agreement without even having time to look it over, or present it to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s legislature.
Incidentally, the Verkhovna Rada holds the only constitutional authority to ratify such a deal for Ukraine – as is the case for Washington, where international agreements must be ratified by the US Senate, according to the US Constitution.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
