A new Donald Trump deal offered to Ukraine in return for continued US support, but with no security guarantees in the face of Russia’s invasion, forces it to choose between life as a US economic colony or Russian occupation.
The latest version of the much-mutated minerals deal from the White House, which has been tabled in Kyiv, goes further than ever before in attempting to get Ukraine to sign up to back pay for US support in the war, plus four per cent.
On top of that it demands that the US, under Delaware law, controls most of Ukraine’s industrial output and much of its transport and communications system.
It is the result of a mafia-style protection shakedown on Ukraine by its former friends in Washington DC supported (by accident or design) by thuggery from the Kremlin.
Ukrainian parliamentarians told The Independent that even if, as is unlikely, president Volodymyr Zelensky signed up to the offer it would stand no chance of ratification by Ukraine’s legislature.
“It completely ignores international law and the Ukrainian constitution and Ukrainian law,” said Oleksandr Morezkho, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has often said that Ukraine is not a “real” country but a natural part of the Russian, or Soviet, empire. Its mineral and agricultural wealth have been seen by Russian colonialists as an essential part of Russian regional dominance.
The Trump administration clearly now sees vast rewards for American business if it can trade the commanding heights of the Ukrainian economy for back payment on war donations and a long term non-military US presence.
The minerals deal – which takes the form of a business contract under US law which has no jurisdiction in Ukraine – sets out that Ukraine and the US would split the royalties from oil, gas, and all minerals.
The profits would be paid to the US, in dollars, and put into a joint investment fund which would be run by Americans holding three of five seats on the governing board.
It further demands that the US contribution to Ukraine’s war effort be paid back immediately. Trump says, wrongly, that this is $350bn but the truth is closer to $130bn.
The US deal covers all infrastructure used on the exploitation of mineral products – trains, roads, airports, ports, pipelines, processing plants and refineries and gives America veto power over the sale of resources to other nations or entities.
“It makes no sense, because the idea is that Ukraine should give everything it has, all its natural resources, in exchange of the aid which has been already provided. But it’s absurd,” Morezkho said.
He said that he hoped the Trump scheme was a negotiating tactic and did not reflect an ultimatum to withhold military and intelligence aid, as the US has threatened, if Kyiv does not sign the contract.
