Media: Experts warn US investment in Ukrainian mineral resources faces major hurdles

US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to be held on February 28, takes place as Washington and Kyiv negotiate a mineral deal that could give the United States partial access to Ukraine’s resources.

Experts said that extracting the minerals sought by the US will require “billions in investment”, Caliber.Az reports via foreign media.

Zelenskyy has previously described his country’s mineral wealth as “priceless.” While the exact valuation of these resources remains uncertain, experts said that any agreement would have to be a long-term endeavor.

This could benefit Kyiv, which is looking to secure Washington’s lasting economic interest in Ukraine’s future amid US financial and military aid at stake. However, they also cautioned that unresolved security guarantees for Ukraine could jeopardize the deal.

“The big problem is that to develop a new mine might take 10 years” or longer, Harvard economist Willy Shih, who specializes in supply chains, told the publication. “Is anyone going to do that in a Ukraine that doesn’t have security guarantees? In other words, how investable is it really?”

“Ukraine has significant mineral potential, but how large that potential is, we simply don’t know,” said Rod Eggert, deputy director of the Critical Materials Innovation Hub at the Colorado School of Mines.

Most of Ukraine’s mineral mapping dates back to the Soviet era, with key deposits, including titanium and lithium, classified since then. “It’s a very outdated approach,” noted Roman Opimakh, former director general of the Ukrainian Geological Survey.

Ukrainian officials acknowledge that a large share of the country’s mineral wealth lies in Russian-controlled areas, including the resource-rich Donbas region. A geopolitical and digital risk company that has studied Ukraine’s resources called SecDev estimates 40 percent of Ukraine’s critical minerals are located in Russian-occupied territory.

President Donald Trump’s remark that the proposed deal would cover “rare earths and other things,” citing the US Geological Survey’s records, which do not indicate Ukraine has significant rare earth deposits was also criticized. This category of 17 elements is crucial for high-tech and industrial applications.

However, Ukraine is known to possess substantial reserves of lithium, graphite, uranium, and titanium—minerals sometimes mistakenly classified as rare earths. All four have been designated “critical minerals” by the US Geological Survey due to concerns over the stability of their global supply chains.

By Nazrin Sadigova