Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday proffered a rival deal to share its massive but under-exploited reserves of rare-earth minerals with the United States, including deposits in its “historical territories,” a cryptic reference to regions of eastern Ukraine that Russia began to occupy in 2014. File Photo by Vyacheslav Prokofyev/EPA-EFE
Russian President Vladimir Putin moved to undercut U.S.-Ukraine negotiations over a critical minerals-sharing agreement, offering an alternate supply deal for valuable elements such as titanium, lithium and beryllium, including material from occupied parts of Ukraine.
Russia is ready to work with partners, including the Americans, to exploit its vast untapped deposits of rare-earth metals, Putin told state media Monday. Advertisement
The proposed joint exploration and mining projects would extend to what he called Russia’s “new territories,” referring to regions of eastern Ukraine that Russia began to occupy in 2014 — now about 20% of the country — and thought to contain the bulk of Ukraine’s reserves of critical minerals.
Putin rejected any link to the pending deal between the United States and Ukraine, saying Russia “undoubtedly has, I want to emphasize, significantly more resources of this kind than Ukraine.”
“As for the new territories, it’s the same. We are ready to attract foreign partners to the so-called new, to our historical territories, which have returned to the Russian Federation,” he added.
Putin also said Russia and the United States could join forces to produce aluminum in Siberia, that Russia wanted to restart aluminum sales to the U.S. market and that it had the capacity to ship around 2 million tons stateside. Advertisement
Exports to the United States were virtually brought to a standstill after the administration of former President Joe Biden suspended normal trade relations with Russia in 2022 and repeated rounds of sanctions on its main producer, Rusal, which operates one of the world’s largest aluminum smelting plants in Krasnoyarsk, 2,500 miles east of Moscow.
Russian aluminum exports to the United States fell to just $2.3 million in 2024, down from a high of $1.7 billion in 2017 — about 15% of all U.S. aluminum imports.
Since then, the price has jumped 43% to $2,655 per ton, with Putin suggesting the arrangement could stabilize the price in the United States.
Putin’s offer came hours after Trump posted on his Truth Social social media platform Monday that along with his discussions with Putin regarding ending the war in Ukraine, the two leaders were talking about “major economic development transactions which will take place between the United States and Russia. Talks are proceeding very well!”
American and Ukrainian officials are working on a deal to allow U.S. companies access to Ukraine’s reserves of critical minerals as a way of recovering the tens of billions of dollars Washington has provided in military and economic assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Advertisement
Trump said Monday that he hoped it would be “signed very soon.”
Ukrainian President Zelensky has indicated a willingness to sign onto the deal, but is holding out for security guarantees from the United States to protect his country from Russia in the future.
