A map shows the location of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals within its annexed regions, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to sell to President Donald Trump.
Putin said on Monday he would grant the U.S. access to rare earth metals in Ukraine’s annexed territories as part of a potential future agreement.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
Why It Matters
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Kyiv and Washington are reported to be closing in on signing a deal to allow the U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits. Trump has said he wants access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as a condition for continuing U.S. support for Kyiv in its defense against Moscow’s aggression.
Ukraine holds trillions of dollars worth of rare earth elements, which are critical for the modern high-tech economy. President Volodymyr Zelensky offered his Western allies access to the materials as part of his five-point “Victory Plan” unveiled in October 2024.
What To Know
The majority of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral reserves are located in regions currently under Russian occupation, including Donetsk and Luhansk—which make up the Donbas—as well as Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Putin in 2014.
According to Forbes, approximately 70 percent of Ukraine’s estimated $14.8 trillion in critical mineral resources are concentrated in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Luhansk. Russia currently controls a significant portion of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, collectively known as the Donbas.
In 2022, just months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Canadian geopolitical risk firm SecDev estimated that Moscow had seized control of at least $12.4 trillion worth of Ukraine’s energy, metal, and mineral deposits, according to an analysis for The Washington Post.
A map put together by Newsweek below shows where Ukraine’s mineral deposits are located.
What People Are Saying
Putin said in an interview with Pavel Zarubin, a Russian propagandist and host of Moscow. Kremlin. Putin on the state-run channel Russia-1: “We would be ready to offer [cooperation] to our American partners—when I say ‘partners,’ I mean not only administrative and government structures, but also companies—if they showed interest in working together.”
Russia is “one of the undisputed leaders in reserves of these rare and rare earth metals.”
“We have them in the North—in Murmansk, in the Caucasus—in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the Far East, in the Irkutsk region, and in Yakutia, in Tuva. These are quite capital-intensive investments, capital-intensive projects. We would be happy to work together with any foreign partners, including the Americans.
“Yes, by the way, regarding new territories, the same thing: we are ready to attract foreign partners, and our so-called new historical territories, which have returned to the Russian Federation, there are also certain reserves there. We are ready to work with our foreign partners, including the Americans, there.”
What Happens Next
Olga Stefanishyna, deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said on Monday that Ukraine and the U.S. were “in the final stages of negotiations regarding the minerals agreement.”
