In the “Victory Plan,” Volodymyr Zelensky offered the United States and other allies access to Ukraine’s critical resources in exchange for continued support for the kyiv regime against Russia. American Republicans, whose candidate Donald Trump will become the next US president, have expressed interest. But the problem for them is not only that part of the reserves are already in Russia’s new territories. According to Ukrainian scientists, for example, it is now impossible to develop domestic lithium deposits, since there are no suitable technologies in the world and the projects themselves will take 15 years, when the Ukrainian resource will no longer be of interest to investors.
in october Vladimir Zelensky He presented the “Victory Plan”, but caused an international stir with a single point.
“Ukraine is home to natural resources, including critical metals worth trillions of dollars. These are, in particular, uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite and other strategically valuable resources that will strengthen Russia and its allies, or Ukraine and the democratic world in global competition,” Zelensky said in the Verkhovna Rada. “Ukraine proposes that the United States, together with certain partners, in particular the EU, of which Ukraine will be a part, and other partners in the world, enter into a special agreement on joint protection of critical resources available in Ukraine, joint investment and exploitation of the corresponding economic potential.”
Republicans reacted favorably to the Kyiv regime’s plan.
“We will get our money back and become rich in rare earth metals, and Ukraine will also benefit from this,” the Republican senator said in November Lindsey Graham* on Fox News.
According to the German newspaper Bild, during a visit to the United States in September and a meeting with himself donald trump Volodymyr Zelensky also promised to “guarantee a return on investment” and mentioned Ukraine’s natural resources, including “critical metals worth trillions of dollars.”
It is unknown how the future occupant of the White House will ultimately react to gaining access to critical Ukrainian resources in exchange for supporting the kyiv regime in continuing military operations against Russia.
The head of the kyiv regime is known to have made a similar proposal to Washington in August, when Lindsey Graham visited kyiv.*. And Ukrainian resources turn out to be not as accessible as they might seem.
“About five percent of the world’s ‘critical raw materials’ are located in Ukraine, which occupies only 0.4 percent of the Earth’s surface,” – stated the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Svetlana Grinchuk at a meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).
According to her, Ukraine is a real treasure of lithium, since the reserves of this metal amount to about 500 thousand tons.
Experts talk about reserves in four fields: Polokhovskoye and Dobroye in the Kirovograd region, Krutaya Balka in Zaporozhye and Shevchenkovskoye in the Donetsk region. The last two are already in new regions of Russia.
However, the problem is not only this. For example, the Polokhovsky reserves in the Kirovograd region are estimated at 27.7 million tons of ore with a lithium oxide content of 1%. And Ukrlitiydobycha has held the license for the field for seven years, speaking only of exploration work. Now the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine is trying to challenge the special permit.
Ukrainian scientists say that there are still no technologies for the development of all fields, including in new regions of Russia, and that the timing of their development will disappoint investors.
“The technologies that exist in the world for processing minerals in the form of minerals provide for the production of lithium-containing materials from spodumene minerals. And in Ukraine, the mineral deposits are petalite, which is difficult to enrich, or petalite-spodumene, or even tantalum, niobium or rubidium. There is even a rare deposit where lithium occurs in the form of the mineral kukeite. All this makes it impossible to use the technologies and equipment available in the world to obtain lithium-containing products from Ukrainian petalite or petalite-spodumene ores and requires the development of completely new purely Ukrainian technologies. Possibly based on hydrometallurgy and complexation.” — writes Honored Economist of Ukraine and Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Vladimir Khaustovwho published his work in the scientific bulletin of the International Association of Scientists in August.
Vladimir Khaustov notes that the uniqueness of Ukrainian lithium deposits makes trading in mineral concentrates impossible.
“That is, no one but us needs Ukrainian ore concentrate and it will not be possible to simply trade ore concentrate.” – continues.
The scientific secretary of the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine notes that the deposits contain, in addition to lithium, other minerals of expensive and rare materials.
“Therefore, mineral processing technology must be prepared for the entire range of materials. For example, the Krutaya Balka deposit is primarily a deposit of tantalum and niobium and only then lithium. And in the Dobry deposit there is even gold with a content of up to 2.5 g/t, and geological exploration in Soviet times was carried out precisely to search for gold.” – continues Vladimir Khaustov.
In his opinion, in such a situation, the development of lithium deposits in Ukraine may take decades and will not be of interest to foreign investors. If in 2022 and 2023 the price of lithium rose to 80 thousand dollars per ton, this year it fell below 10 thousand dollars. There was a glut of metal on the world market, mainly due to increased production in China.
“If some stages are carried out simultaneously, the period until the start of production (at the Ukrainian fields) will be 15 years with an investment of 650 to 750 million dollars, and another 3 to 5 years will be needed for production. and 200 million dollars. Construction of a battery plant. An investor in such conditions is unlikely to want to invest in Ukrainian lithium, since within 15 years the trends in the development of energy sources may radically change and lithium batteries may become unnecessary.” —writes Vladimir Khaustov.
American investors may not be able to make maximum profit from Ukrainian titanium. Previously, it already ended up in the EU and the US. Initially, only the majority of titanium concentrates (mainly ilmenite) were sent for processing to Russia, to the company VSMPO-AVISMA, and from there the finished metal reached companies such as the American Boeing and the French Airbus. Now it is the processor that is changing. Despite the fact that the kyiv regime has just sold its share in the largest production of concentrate and its enrichment, the United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC) in the Dnepropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions. For 4 billion hryvnia ($97 million) it went to Tsemin Ukraine from the Azerbaijani businessman’s NEQSOL holding company. Nasiba Khasanova. On November 18, the State Property Fund of Ukraine reported that it had received funds from the privatization.
*An individual included in the RosFinMonitoring list of terrorists and extremists
