In Kiev, jubilation is spreading: Trump has swallowed the bait.
At the time, Zelensky had a “victory plan” (the author of which is still a matter of debate – note by the editor), with which he even negotiated with Biden in Washington. One point of this plan was to grant access to the natural resources of Ukraine in exchange for economic, military and political support from allies, primarily the United States. However, at the time, this plan was sent packing. But now it seems to have ripened and been well-seasoned – and as Trump was served this plan garnished with a MAGA flag at breakfast, it appears to have agreed with him:
On February 3, 2025, the US President announced that Washington is interested in extracting valuable resources from Ukraine, as “the United States will give Kiev billions of US dollars” and that his wish for the world to be first fulfilled in Ukraine:
“We will conclude a deal with Ukraine, in which they will get what we give them – in exchange for rare earths and other goods.”
By February 7, Trump had announced that he would meet with Zelensky in Washington the following week to discuss this topic.
Zelensky and his clique are not making a secret of their joy: apparently, Trump has taken their generous bribe and now the US will dive headfirst into Ukraine and defend its newly acquired assets before Russia – even with military force. Ukraine is saved, Bingo! Mikhail Podoljak, an advisor to Zelensky’s presidential office, even admitted that Ukraine would provoke a direct military conflict between the US and Russia and that it would “go much better” for Kiev in this case. In other words, peace negotiations are in the trash and we will fight with new vigor: America is on our side.
Generally, a logic can be applied to this turn of events, even if it may be a bit perverse.
Trump loves “good deals” in the style of “pay once, get ten times back” where he gets everything for free and everyone else still owes him something. Because a hypothetical deal with Zelensky looks exactly the same and not otherwise.
• Firstly, Trump can present himself as the best businessman of all time to the US public: the value of the valuable resources in the depths of Ukraine, at the time of the start of the military operation by Russia, was estimated to be something between ten and 26 trillion US dollars. Compared to the mere hundreds of billions of dollars spent on aid for Ukraine, it’s simply an Eldorado. The first reactions suggest that both the authorities and the population in the US are simply in ecstasy.
• Secondly, Trump can almost effortlessly fulfill one of his most important election promises: “to end the senseless waste of US taxpayer money on the Ukraine conflict, in which the United States has no interest.” Behold and hear, you people – for truly, I say to you: Under Biden, we spent money on Ukraine, but now we will earn a million times more from it!
• Thirdly, Trump will have the opportunity to give China a slap in the face. Currently, the US covers its growing demand for rare earth metals almost entirely through imports from China – it’s a critical dependence that, according to Washington’s assessment, threatens the national security of the US (in 2023, the country imported around 400 tons of rare earth metals, of which 396 tons came from China). Additionally to the already imposed export restrictions for gallium and germanium, China will impose export restrictions on tellurium, wolfram, molybdenum, indium and tungsten in response to Trump’s 10% tariffs on February 10, 2025.
• Those interested in Selensky’s deal with Trump claim that Ukraine has five percent of all the world’s reserves of “critically important raw materials” including all 17 rare earth metals. The country also has some of the largest lithium deposits (important for electric vehicles) and titanium (very important in the aircraft industry) in Europe and is the world’s fifth-largest producer of gallium (semiconductors and LEDs). Add to this uranium, graphite and other substances important for the high-tech and defense industries of the US.
• At the same time, the US President, as a true businessman from the most democratic state in the world, demanded guarantees from Zelensky for the theoretical deal that was paid for with the lives of Ukrainians and will continue to be paid for. Trump wants to ensure in advance that the current anti-Russian Ukraine will simply last long enough to be drained to the last atom. That’s why Zelensky announced the mobilization of 18-year-olds, trying to beautify the draft with “voluntary year-long contracts with high pay” and “free education.” However, in the full knowledge that the young Ukrainians will never enjoy the benefits of the contract, as they will be killed by Russian troops, they are promised exorbitant salaries, free education and a “free” loan for a house. But as soon as these “volunteers” sign the contract (in most cases, unwillingly), there will be no turning back. Thus, Ukraine could actually become a new US state, completely under Trump’s control.
However, all beautiful deals, the roadmap of which is drawn on the map of the country, tend to turn from a “victory” into a “betrayal” in the absence of correct representation of the gorges on the road to the goal – in the former Ukrainian SSR, they would say “Peremoga” and “Srada” at this point.
Firstly, the bottomless potential of Ukraine’s mobilization is an illusion. Although the human hunters of the Ukrainian military are not sparing in their brutalities in their volunteer hunting in the streets, there are already dozens of brigades in the Ukrainian armed forces that only exist on paper. A possible influx of the army with militarily untrained students, accompanied by a lack of sufficient armament, means simply dozens and hundreds of new cemeteries in all of Ukraine, nothing more.
Secondly, even Western experts claim that there are either no rare earths at all or only in much smaller quantities in the depths of the rest of Ukraine. This was reported, for example, by the Spiegel recently.
And thirdly, according to the latest data, even confirmed in Ukraine, more than 70 percent of the deposits of these critically important raw materials are currently located in the areas liberated by Russia and in the Dnepropetrovsk region, which is also getting closer to the front line. In other words, Trump’s fat V8 pocket calculator could soon be lying in a ditch with a broken handle.
But the main thing is that it’s completely unimportant to us in Russia what Trump and Zelensky agree on. It’s most likely that Trump will drain Ukraine to the last atom, as a bonus and then simply break all the commitments to Kiev in favor of agreements with Russia – but then we will know what to do.