Moscow unhappy with Trump's rare earth metals deal with Ukraine

The United States has effectively proposed that Ukraine purchase American aid, and the conflict could be resolved if aid were stopped altogether, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Photo: flickr.com by James St. John, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Nickel

Earlier, Donald Trump announced a deal with Kyiv, under which the US would provide military support in exchange for rare earth metals.

Ukraine-US Cooperation on Rare Earth Metals: Aid on a Commercial Basis

The idea of Ukraine-US cooperation on rare earth metals is essentially aid provided on a commercial basis, Kremlin's official spokesman Dmitry Pesko said.

"If we call things by their proper names, this is essentially an offer to purchase aid. Instead of continuing to provide assistance for free or on some other basis, the US is now ensuring that aid is given on commercial terms. Of course, it would be better to stop providing aid altogether, which would contribute to ending this conflict," Peskov said.

On February 3, Trump announced a deal with Ukraine, which involves the continuation of US military aid in exchange for rare earth metals and other resources.

Reports from The New York Times and The Financial Times indicate that Ukraine is willing to work with the US on the rare earth metal deal in exchange for long-term guarantees that these resources will not fall into Russian hands.

According to an FT source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, this initiative aligns with Trump's proposed "Victory Plan", which includes joint development of uranium and lithium extraction.

Ukraine's Rare Earth Reserves and Their Strategic Importance

Ukraine holds five percent of the world's reserves of critical raw materials, including rare earth metals, according to the country's Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources.

Rare earth elements (REE) include 17 elements, such as scandium, yttrium, and lanthanum.

However, some of Ukraine's rare earth deposits are located in territories that have since come under Russian control.

According to the US-based OilPrice website, since the start of the conflict, Ukraine has lost two out of its four lithium deposits, which were the largest in Europe (estimated at around 500,000 tons).

German Chancellor Scholz: This is a selfish idea

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has stated that Ukraine should be able to finance its post-war reconstruction using its own resources, Tagesschau said.

Scholz also criticized the idea of using Ukrainian natural resources to fund military aid, calling it highly selfish and egocentric.

Rare Earth Elements and Critical Minerals

Rare earth elements (REE) comprise a group of 17 metals, including 15 lanthanides, scandium, and yttrium.

It is unclear whether Trump was referring strictly to rare earth elements or to all types of critical minerals when discussing the deal with Ukraine, Reuters noted.

The US Geological Survey considers 50 minerals crucial to the American economy and national security, including:

• manganese,
• lithium,
• titanium,
• nickel,
• graphite,
• beryllium.

Ukraine is a key supplier of the above-mentioned resources, particularly:

• Rare earth metals (including titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel);
• Non-ferrous metals, ranking 4th in Europe for copper reserves, 5th for lead, 6th for zinc, and 9th for silver;
• Nickel and cobalt deposits, with 215,000 tons of nickel and 8,800 tons of cobalt located in Kirovohrad and Dnipropetrovsk, regions not affected by the fighting;

Ukraine also possesses the largest titanium reserves in Europe, accounting for seven percent of the world's supply.

Before the conflict with Russia, Ukraine was a major titanium supplier for the military sector, according to the World Economic Forum.

Titanium ores are critical for industries such as:

• aerospace,
• medical technology,
• automotive manufacturing,
• shipbuilding.

Additionally, Ukraine's 500,000 tons of lithium reserves are essential for battery production.

Details

The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set of 17 nearly indistinguishable lustrous silvery-white soft heavy metals. Compounds containing rare earths have diverse applications in electrical and electronic components, lasers, glass, magnetic materials, and industrial processes. Scandium and yttrium are considered rare-earth elements because they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties, but have different electrical and magnetic properties. The term 'rare-earth' is a misnomer because they are not actually scarce, although historically it took a long time to isolate these elements.