Trump's New Resource Proposal for Ukraine is Tougher than Before: NT

On February 21, Ukraine received a new version of the natural resources utilization agreement from the Donald Trump administration. According to reports from Ukrainian NV (New Time) and the American publication The New York Times, this draft of the agreement is tougher than the initial version.

The previous version stated that Ukraine had to agree to create a joint fund with the United States, which would include rights for the development of subsoil resources. This fund would distribute those rights in favor of American investors, and the revenues from the extraction and sale of minerals would be split 50/50 between Kyiv and Washington.

In the new version, Washington proposes to ensure 100% of the future fund's assets for the U.S., distributing the parties' investments at a two-to-one ratio, where the Ukrainian side invests two-thirds of the future profits from production, and the American side one-third, which has already been provided in the form of weapons. The American side suggests setting the fund's size at $500 billion, representing the reimbursement for military and financial aid already provided and future American expenditures that Donald Trump wants to receive from Ukraine.

The New York Times notes that this amount was not mentioned in the previous version of the agreement. According to the American publication, the new draft also includes a clause regarding revenues from territories currently occupied by Russia, in the event of their liberation. It is expected that the share of revenue from liberated territories entering the fund will constitute 66 percent.

The new draft agreement “almost contains the same provisions that Kyiv had previously rejected as excessively burdensome... Some conditions even seem tougher than those in the previous draft,” reports The New York Times. Five sources from NV, “who are working on the development of the new agreement,” also consider it to be stricter than its predecessor.