‘A Truly Equal Agreement’ – Zelensky Hails Minerals Deal as a Success

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address to the nation on Thursday that the long-awaited minerals deal with the United States offered “equal” benefits for the US and Ukraine, and revealed that the genesis of the final agreement arose from the meeting in St Peter’s Basilica with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, just after Pope Francis’ funeral.

“Now it is a truly equal agreement that creates an opportunity for quite significant investment in Ukraine,” the president said. “There is no debt in the deal, and a fund, a recovery fund, will be created that will invest in Ukraine and earn money here.”

Ukraine and the US will split revenues 50/50, which will come in the form of royalty payments for minerals extraction, licensing fees, and “amounts payable under production sharing agreements.”

There are dozens of minerals expected to be available on Ukrainian lands, ranging from aluminum and antimony to lithium and lutetium, and from palladium and platinum to yttrium and zirconium, including several of the 17 elements described as “rare earth metals.”

The agreement also covers fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas.

“The agreement foresees no debt,” Zelensky continued, meaning that Washington does not expect to be repaid for arms granted to Ukraine over the course of the Russian full-scale invasion. “It stipulates the establishment of a Reconstruction Fund that will invest in Ukraine and generate returns here. This means joint work with America, based on fair terms, allowing both Ukraine and the United States, which supports us in our defense, to make money in partnership.”

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Zelensky Honors Media Workers on Journalists’ Day

President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Security Service of Ukraine, and Defense Intelligence Chief Lieutenant General Oleh Ivashchenko issued official statements congratulating media workers on Ukraine’s Journalists’ Day. The leadership emphasized the critical role reporters play in recording eyewitness testimonies and securing evidence of Russian war crimes, which directly supports Ukraine’s political efforts to receive foreign assistance.

“We spoke with the President of the United States, Donald Trump, about our readiness to conclude the agreement – we discussed it during our meeting in the Vatican. In fact, this is the first tangible outcome of that Vatican meeting, making it truly historic,” Zelensky stressed.

And while there is no language in the contract that describes US security guarantess, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.”

Coinciding with the agreement to terms, in fact, a Washington insider told a Kyiv Post reporter on Wednesday that the administration was green-lighting new private arms sales to Ukraine.

On Thursday, military bloggers noted that mothballed American F-16s were being packed up for Ukraine. The three or four “Vipers” are likely to have originated from the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (AFB) in Tucson, Arizona, where the US has been storing surplus and decommissioned aircraft since World War II.