Russia & Ukraine

kashirin · Feb 18, 2025

gwb-trading said:
To Trump, the Ukraine situation is just an opportunity for large scale grift for himself and his buddies. He basically wants to steal all the natural resources from Ukraine and strip the country leaving it in abject poverty. No different than Putin.

Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold
Panic in Kyiv as US president demands higher share of GDP than Germany’s First World War reparations
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/busines...trump-confidential-plan-ukraine-stranglehold/

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

The agreement covers the “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine”, including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”, leaving it unclear what else might be encompassed. “This agreement shall be governed by New York law, without regard to conflict of laws principles,” it states.

The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.

It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy. The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects. And so forth, in this vein. It seems to have been written by private lawyers, not the US departments of state or commerce.

President Zelensky himself proposed the idea of giving the US a direct stake in Ukraine’s rare earth elements and critical minerals on a visit to Trump Tower in September, hoping to smooth the way for continued arms deliveries.

He calculated that it would lead to US companies setting operations on the ground, creating a political tripwire that would deter Vladimir Putin from attacking again.

Some mineral basins are near the front line in eastern Ukraine, or in Russian-occupied areas. He has played up the dangers of letting strategic reserves of titanium, tungsten, uranium, graphite and rare earths fall into Russian hands. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” he said.

He probably did not expect to be confronted with terms normally imposed on aggressor states defeated in war. They are worse than the financial penalties imposed on Germany and Japan after their defeat in 1945. Both countries were ultimately net recipients of funds from the victorious allies.

A new Versailles
If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty, later whittled down at the London Conference in 1921, and by the Dawes Plan in 1924. At the same time, he seems willing to let Russia off the hook entirely.

Donald Trump told Fox News that Ukraine had “essentially agreed” to hand over $500bn. “They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earths, in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things,” he said.

He warned that Ukraine would be handed to Putin on a plate if it rejected the terms. “They may make a deal. They may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday. But I want this money back,” he said.

Trump said the US had spent $300bn on the war so far, adding that it would be “stupid” to hand over any more. In fact the five packages agreed by Congress total $175bn, of which $70bn was spent in the US on weapons production. Some of it is in the form of humanitarian grants, but much of it is lend-lease money that must be repaid.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham suggested at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that Trump’s demand was a clever ploy to bolster declining popular support for the Ukrainian cause. “He can go to the American people and say, ‘Ukraine is not a burden, it is a benefit,’” he said.

Sen Graham told the Europeans to root hard for the idea because it locks Washington into defending a future settlement. “If we sign this minerals agreement, Putin is screwed, because Trump will defend the deal,” he said.

Ukrainian officials had to tiptoe though this minefield at the Munich forum, trying to smile gamely and talking up hopes of a resource deal while at the same pleading that the current text breaches Ukrainian law and needs redrafting. Well, indeed.

Talk of Ukraine’s resource wealth has become surreal. A figure of $26 trillion is being cast around for combined mineral reserves and hydrocarbons reserves. The sums are make-believe.

Ukraine probably has the largest lithium basin in Europe. But lithium prices have crashed by 88pc since the bubble burst in 2022. Large reserves are being discovered all over the world. The McDermitt Caldera in Nevada is thought to be the biggest lithium deposit on the planet with 40m metric tonnes, alone enough to catapult the US ahead of China.

The Thacker Pass project will be operational by next year. The value of lithium is in the processing and the downstream industries. Unprocessed rock deposits sitting in Ukraine are all but useless to the US.

It is a similar story for rare earths. They are not rare. Mining companies in the US abandoned the business in the 1990s because profit margins were then too low. The US government was asleep at the wheel and let this happen, waking up to discover that China has acquired a strategic stranglehold over supplies of critical elements needed for hi-tech and advanced weapons. That problem is being resolved.

Ukraine has cobalt but most EV batteries now use lithium ferrous phosphate and no longer need cobalt. Furthermore, sodium-ion and sulphur-based batteries will limit the future demand growth for lithium. So will recycling. One could go on. The mineral scarcity story is wildly exaggerated.

As for Ukraine’s shale gas, a) some of the Yuzivska field lies under Putin control, and b) the western Carpathian reserves are in complex geology with high drilling costs, causing Chevron to pull out, just as it did in Poland. Ukraine has more potential as an exporter of electricity to Europe from renewables and nuclear expansion, but that is not what is on Donald Trump’s mind.

The second violation of Ukraine
Ukraine cannot possibly meet his $500bn demand in any meaningful timeframe, leaving aside the larger matter of whether it is honourable to treat a victim nation in this fashion after it has held the battle line for the liberal democracies at enormous sacrifice for three years. Who really has a debt to whom, may one ask?

“My style of dealmaking is quite simple and straightforward,” says Trump in his book The Art of the Deal. “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”

In genuine commerce the other side can usually walk away. Trump’s demand is iron-fist coercion by a neo-imperial power against a weaker nation with its back to the wall, and all for a commodity bonanza that exists chiefly in Trump’s head.

“Often-times the best deal you make is the deal you don’t make,” said Trump, offering another of his pearls.

Zelensky does not have that luxury. He has to pick between the military violation of Ukraine by Putin, and the economic violation of Ukraine by his own ally.

(Article has pictures, charts and text of the proposed agreement.)
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WIthout being paid by nazis you posts became complete garbage

Ukraine doesn't have any resources, if they had any they would start it develop it before.

All that they have can be sourced elsewhere much cheaper

even if they had resources extraction would require enormous investments which are offered by Trump and that would be hugely beneficial for post war ukraine

so the deal was hundreds of billions of investments and shared profits after the war but no new weapons. But zelensky is interested only in weapons and extending war. so he declined

Trump just used it to show Zelensky is not interested in anything but extending war

kashirin · Feb 18, 2025

themickey said:
Ukraine, formerly a republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1922–1991, once hosted Soviet nuclear weapons and delivery systems on its territory.

While all these weapons were located on Ukrainian territory, they were not under Ukraine's control. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to transfer these weapons to Russia and became a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, in exchange for assurances from Russia, the United States and United Kingdom to respect the Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders. Russia, one of the parties of the agreement, later invaded Ukraine.
Wiki
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In 2014 after nazi coup those agreements became void

Snuskpelle · Feb 19, 2025

EU sending military gear worth € 6-10 billion in its next support package: https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-eu-countries-target-e6b-military-aid-package/

Nobert · Feb 19, 2025

Timestamped

gwb-trading · Feb 19, 2025

Putin not interested in genuine peace talks, US intel sources warn
https://english.nv.ua/nation/putin-...ace-talks-us-intel-sources-warn-50491150.html

Snuskpelle · Feb 19, 2025

The EU will most likely cover the US' previous share of support: https://bsky.app/profile/meanwhileua.bsky.social/post/3lijrb372ee2a

Hello dictatorship: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensuring-accountability-for-all-agencies/

Tsing Tao · Feb 19, 2025

gwb-trading said:
Putin not interested in genuine peace talks, US intel sources warn
https://english.nv.ua/nation/putin-...ace-talks-us-intel-sources-warn-50491150.html
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Is this the same US intel sources that have guided us so well these last few decades?

Nobert · Feb 19, 2025

russia : " We need aid "
UA SBU : ,, Gotcha "

Snuskpelle said:
Hello dictatorship: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensuring-accountability-for-all-agencies/
More...

Wouldn't worry about that.
I look at US as if it is a whale or elephant, their domestic politics.
And whales or elephants are 20 times more resilient to cancer than humans. Thus, he might have his party for four years, but when the time is up, the time is up.
You don't want to p off ~150 million people (half of the nation)

Tsing Tao · Feb 19, 2025

gwb-trading · Feb 19, 2025

Yep... just Trump lying again.

"Trump said the US had spent $300bn on the war so far, adding that it would be “stupid” to hand over any more. In fact the five packages agreed by Congress total $175bn, of which $70bn was spent in the US on weapons production. Some of it is in the form of humanitarian grants, but much of it is lend-lease money that must be repaid."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/busines...trump-confidential-plan-ukraine-stranglehold/