He was expected in kyiv. The United States of Donald Trump and Ukraine signed a vast economic agreement in Washington on Wednesday in Washington set up an investment fund in the reconstruction of this country ravaged by the war and giving the Americans access to Ukrainian natural resources.
This agreement comes in parallel with multiple diplomatic negotiations in progress to find an outcome to the conflict, three years after its outbreak by Russia and two months after the media clash between the American president and his Ukrainian counterpart.
“With the United States, we create this fund which will attract global investments in our country,” said the Ukrainian minister of the Economy, Ioulia Svyrydenko, who made the trip to Washington to sign the document.
Oil and gas extraction projects
The agreement with Washington will finance “mineral, petroleum and gas extraction projects,” said the Ukrainian minister on Facebook. But Ukraine “retains full ownership and control of these resources” including the basement, and it will be “the Ukrainian state which determines where and what to extract,” she said.
According to the American Treasury, this agreement “recognizes the important financial and material aid that the American people has provided to the defense of Ukraine since the large -scale invasion of Russia” – an expression very rarely used by Washington since the return to power of Donald Trump.
The United States provided, under the previous government of Joe Biden, tens of billions of dollars in help in Ukraine.
A new balance in peace negotiations
During the interview with Volodymyr Zelensky at the Vatican on the sidelines of the pope’s funeral, “I told him that it was a very good thing” if this agreement was signed, “because Russia is much greater, much stronger,” said Donald Trump on the Newsnation channel on Wednesday.
Donald Trump “wants both parties to sit at the table, now, showing that the United States has an economic interest in Ukraine,” said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Fox News.
“It is a signal for Russian leaders. It is also a signal for the American people that we have a chance to participate, to obtain (…) compensation “for the funding and weapons provided in Ukraine, he continued.
Several text trips
The draft agreement has been at the heart of tensions between kyiv and Washington, the support of which is crucial for Ukraine for weeks.
A previous version of this text should have been signed during the visit of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House at the end of February, but his unprecedented altercation with his American counterpart, under the cameras, had precipitated his departure and canceled the signature of the agreement.
A new version, offered by Washington in March, had been deemed very unfavorable by Ukrainian and media deputies. Over the negotiations, this document could be transformed into a more acceptable version for kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.
Many unexploited resources
An American Congress Democrat, Gregory Meeks, however denounced a “extortion” of Donald Trump on Wednesday evening.
The document must still be ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament. It does not seem to include US security guarantees against Russia, however requested by Ukraine, a point on which Volodymyr Zelensky insisted.
The quantity of mining riches contained in the Ukrainian soil remains unclear, most of these resources being unexploited, difficult to extract or de facto under Russian control, because they are in territories occupied by the Russian army.
