In an interesting bit of news out of Eastern Europe, Ukraine has agreed to a proposal from the Trump administration on American access to strategic minerals in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials say Kyiv is now ready to sign the agreement on jointly developing its mineral resources, including oil and gas, after the US dropped demands for a right to $500bn in potential revenue from exploiting the resources.
Although the text lacks explicit security guarantees, the officials argued that they had negotiated far more favourable terms and depicted the deal as a way of broadening the relationship with the US to shore up Ukraine’s prospects after three years of war.
“The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister…
