Euan MacDonald: New Voice of Ukraine editor on the US and Ukraine working out a minerals deal

The US has signed a deal with Kyiv to share profits from the future sale of Ukraine's mineral reserves - after months of tense negotiations and an infamous meeting in the White House.

The two countries have agreed to establish a reconstruction investment fund to spur Ukraine's economic recovery from its war with Russia.

New Voice of Ukraine editor says this is a better deal than the previous one on offer - but there's been criticism coming out of Ukraine about it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
After months of tense negotiations and that meeting in the
White House, Ukraine and the US have signed a minerals deal. Now.
Under the deal, the two countries would share profits from
the sale of Ukraine's mineral reserves in the future, and
Ukraine is believed to have vast reserves of critical minerals
like graphite, titanium, and lithium. Ewan McDonald is the editor
of New Voice of Ukraine and with US. Ewan Hello, Hello,

(00:21):
is this a good deal for Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's a better deal than the one that was offered previously.
Ukraine has been negotiating for a long time with the
US administration about this deal. It was not seen positively
at first, I think in Ukraine because it seemed to
be exploitative of Ukraine. Ukraine is in a bad situation

(00:46):
at the moment, under attack by Russia. The war is
going on, lots of damage done this one. This deal
appears to be better because it does actually include the
idea that the US might invest actual military aid things
like air defense systems as part of its contribution to
the fund. So I think this deal will be taken

(01:09):
a bit more positively in Ukraine than it was before.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
So will. I mean, given that, what we should probably
take from the deal is that the US is now
financially involved in whether Ukraine actually comes out of this. Well,
should Putin be worried about this deal being signed?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, it's not good news for put In because what
it does is it binds Ukraine and US together, improves
the relationship which Putin was obviously trying to undermine and
has been trying to undermine ever since the US started
to engage with Russia as part of this peace process.
The deal is not really I wouldn't say it's part

(01:49):
of the peace process because it's focused on the reconstruction
of Ukraine after the war has ended. But it maybe
takes us a little bit down the road more towards
that starting to talk about peace. Maybe the US will
be more engaged in trying to achieve a peace settlement
because basically no progress has been made on that so far.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
What are the real reason do you think that Pusian
announced that cease fire for next week?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
The ceasefire dates coincide with Russia's Victory Day, which is
on May ninth, when traditionally Russia holds a large military
parade in Moscow. Russia's air defense systems have proved to
be not very effective against Ukrainian drones, and Ukraine now
has drone forces and missiles capable of striking targets in

(02:40):
Moscow and beyond. So this is in Ukraine, it's quite
clearly seen as basically a cynical way of Putin to
hijack the idea of peace in order to protect his
parade and make sure that there are no embarrassing moments
while his foreign guests are in Russia for this parade.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
And you and do you think that Ukraine will honor that?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
It is? Usually Ukraine goes along with these Russian unilateral
cease fires, which are not really cease fires at all,
because Russia tends to keep firing anyway. It uses these
cease fires to improve its positions, bring up logistics and
troops to the front unmolested by Ukraine in drones. So

(03:31):
Ukraine will probably what usually does is says it will
go along with it. But if the Russians fire, then
Ukraine will respond in kind. And usually the Russians fire.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Now you and what are the chances that this piece
deal that has been has been proffered by the US,
where you know, there would be this massive concession of
land by Ukraine. What are the chances that this thing
actually squeaks over the line?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Very little chance because of the political situation in Ukraine,
which is very much against just handing over land for peace.
That is not the roots of the conflict are not
really to do with land, is to do with political
control of Ukraine and the very idea of Ukraine being
a sovereign, independent state. Russia wants to destroy Ukraine basically

(04:21):
in that and make it a sort of a vassal state. Also,
the peace deal, although it seems to give a lot
to Russia, doesn't really give it all it wants. Again politically,
it wants control of Ukraine. So there's also going to
be pushed back from Russia. And they don't like the
deal either, even though it appears to be far more

(04:41):
beneficial to Russia than to Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
So what's it going to take to make this deal work?

Speaker 2 (04:48):
It would have to involve real negotiations between Russia and
Ukraine with the US as a mediator. At the moment,
the US is just going presenting a plan to Russia
and then taking it to Ukraine to say to see
if it likes it. Ukraine also, and then it goes

(05:09):
to Ukraine and with another plan and says can we
do this? Ukraine agreed to cease fire fifty days ago
that was offered by the Trump administration, but was never
taken up by the Russians. So there would have to
be a proper peace process really with contacts between Ukraine
and Russia through a mediator. Probably at the moment is

(05:31):
a sort of shuttle diplomacy which is not achieving any results.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
You and it's good to talk to you. I really
appreciate you talking us through it. Thanks mate, Ewan McDonald,
who was the editor of New Voice of Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
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