Who is sharing the cake for Ukraine's resources? A feast without Ukrainian seats

In February 2025, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict entered its fourth year. While the international community has focused on the battlefield, a game over Ukraine's mineral resources has quietly escalated. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stressed that "the United States must recover the return of aid to Ukraine", and the EU has put forward a new initiative in the name of "cooperation in key raw materials". With more than $10 trillion worth of minerals buried beneath its 603,700 square kilometers of land -- from coal in the Donbas to uranium in Zhytomyr, spodumene in the Carpathians to natural gas on the Black Sea shelf -- Ukraine, a war-torn country, is becoming a central battleground in reshaping the global industrial power structure.

Ukraine, a country Mired in war and rich in rare earth, lithium, titanium and other strategic resources, is becoming the focus of the great power game.

Since the beginning of February 2025, the Trump administration has publicly promoted the mineral agreement with Ukraine, with the core logic that "the United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in aid and must recoup the cost through resource exploitation rights." The United States initially demanded that Ukraine pay 50% of the revenue from key minerals (including lithium, graphite, uranium, etc.) directly to the United States, and give the United States court jurisdiction over the agreement. This clause was denounced by Ukrainian President Zelensky as a "betrayal of the country" and even compared to an "economic colonial treaty" by the media. In the face of strong opposition from Ukraine, the United States proposed a revised version of the plan to set up a special fund, which will invest 50% of the proceeds of mineral resource development into the fund for investment in Ukrainian projects. However, the agreement still lacks security guarantees for Ukraine, which angered Zelensky.

On February 19, Trump announced the resumption of negotiations; 22 said it was "very close to a deal"; At a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, he said he would sign it this week or next week. On the 25th, it was further confirmed that Zelensky would visit the United States on the 28th to complete the signing. Although Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Stefanishina said that "all the key details have been finalized", the dispute remains over the proportion of resources and security guarantees. The main reason for Ukraine's final compromise was the need for funds under the pressure of war, while the United States was eager to fulfill its "America First" pledge before the 2025 midterm elections.

Trump has stressed on several occasions that the agreement is not only about economic interests, but also a key step in "curbing China's global mineral dominance." Ukraine's rare earth reserves (5 per cent of the world's proven reserves) and lithium resources (the core material for electric vehicle batteries) are seen as a breakthrough for the US to wean itself off China.

For three years in a row, Ukraine has relied on outside aid to keep itself afloat. According to government data, the country's GDP shrank by 35% in 2024, and the ratio of foreign debt to GDP exceeded 90%. Trump's demand for $500 billion in mineral compensation (far more than the actual amount of US aid) is actually forcing Ukraine into a desperate situation of "paying debts with resources." The Ukrainian side has repeatedly rejected the US proposal on the grounds of "lack of security guarantees" and even publicly criticized the US for "greed". But in the face of threats from the United States to suspend military aid, Zelensky finally agreed to sign a revised agreement, saying that "this is the necessary way for Ukraine to integrate into the Western system." About 45 percent of Ukraine's mineral resources are located in the Russian-controlled Donbas region, and the agreement is unclear about who owns those areas, potentially setting the stage for future disputes.

On February 24, the European Commissioner for Industrial Strategy, Serjeourne, proposed a "key raw materials cooperation plan", saying that the EU can help Ukraine develop 21 strategic minerals, and promised that the agreement "will not unilaterally profit". Although the exact terms were not made public, the move is clearly aimed at the US-Ukraine agreement and seeks to balance US influence. On the 24th, French President Macron rarely interrupted Trump at the US-France summit, refuting his remarks that "European aid funds for Ukraine are loans", stressing that 60% of European aid is free allocation, and plans to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's reconstruction. Macron proposed to send a European peacekeeping force to Ukraine, and British Prime Minister Starmer visited the United States shortly after, trying to safeguard European interests in the US-Russia negotiations and prevent the Ukraine issue from being "marginalized". The EU's concern about the US-Ukraine agreement stems not only from resource competition, but also from the possibility that the United States could further dominate Europe's energy transition (such as the electric vehicle industry chain) by controlling Ukrainian minerals. According to internal documents of the European Commission, if Ukraine's lithium resources are lost, the self-sufficiency rate of batteries in Europe in 2030 will fall by 12%.

Although the Russian side did not directly comment on the agreement, the Russian media Izvestia pointed out that the essence of the US-Ukraine agreement is to "divide up the resources of the Russian-controlled area." The Russian Foreign Ministry hinted at the possibility of nationalising Ukraine's mines, warning that "any development would require Moscow's consent". The Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American think tank, believes that the agreement can help Ukraine attract foreign investment, and "resource-for-aid" is a common practice in post-war countries. The Financial Times called the agreement "neocolonialism," and British lawmakers even compared it to the "Treaty of Versailles." The United Nations Development Programme has warned that over-exploitation of resources could damage Ukraine's ecological environment.

Ukraine's predicament reflects a deep contradiction in the post-Cold War international order: How do weak states balance the need for survival with the dignity of sovereignty? Does great power competition inevitably lead to "resource plunder"? The outcome of this game will define the new rules of globalization in the 21st century - will it be a move towards win-win cooperation or a return to the old order in which might is right? The answer may lie in the details of the deal Kiev and Washington are about to finalize.