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It’s not just Trump. The UK views critical minerals as a government priority and wants to open up Ukraine’s vast resources to British corporations, Mark Curtis writes.
Ukraine has significant deposits of minerals such as beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium and rare earth metals, which are crucial for industries like military production, high-tech and green energy.
The UK government has signed a 100-year partnership with Ukraine to develop Ukraine’s “critical minerals strategy” and has met with companies like Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Rothschilds to discuss access to Ukraine’s minerals. The goal is to support UK companies and champion London as a finance hub for critical minerals.
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Britain Wants Ukraine’s Minerals Too
By Mark Curtis as published by Declassified UK on 11 March 2025
When UK officials signed a 100-year partnership with Ukraine in mid-January, they claimed to be Ukraine’s “preferred partner” in developing the country’s “critical minerals strategy.”
Yet within a month, Donald Trump had presented a proposal to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to access the country’s vast mineral resources as “compensation” for US support to Ukraine in the war against Russia.
Whitehall was none too pleased about Washington muscling in.
When foreign secretary David Lammy met Zelensky in Kyiv last month he reportedly raised the issue of minerals, “a sign that Starmer’s government is still keen to get access to Ukraine’s riches”, the iPaper reported.
Lammy earlier said, in a speech last year: “Look around the world. Countries are scrambling to secure critical minerals, just as great powers once raced to control oil.”
The UK foreign secretary was correct, but Britain itself is one of those powers, and Ukraine is one of the major countries UK officials – as well as the Trump administration – have their eyes on.
It’s no surprise why. Ukraine has around 20,000 mineral deposits covering 116 types of minerals such as beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, rare earth metals and nickel.
The country, whose economy has been devastated by Russia’s brutal war, also possesses one of the world’s largest reserves of graphite, the largest titanium reserves in Europe and a third of the continent’s lithium deposits.
These resources are key for industries such as military production, high-tech, aerospace and green energy.
In recent years, the Ukrainian government has sought to attract foreign investment to develop its critical mineral resources and signed strategic partnerships and held investment fora to showcase its mining opportunities.
The country has also begun auctioning exploration permits for minerals such as lithium, copper, cobalt and nickel, offering lucrative investment opportunities.
Media narratives largely parrot the UK government’s interests in Ukraine being about standing up to aggression. But Whitehall has in the past few years stepped up its interest in accessing the world’s critical minerals, not least in Ukraine.
Related: UK sees privatisation ‘opportunities’ in Ukraine war, Declassified UK, 20 November 2024
“Critical Minerals Work”
Nusrat Ghani, trade minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, held at least 10 meetings on the subject of critical minerals in 2023 and the first half of 2024, government transparency data shows.
Among the companies she met were giant UK mining corporations Rio Tinto and Anglo American, and arms exporter BAE Systems and military aerospace lobbyists, ADS.
It is not clear if Ukraine was the subject of these discussions but one other prominent firm Ghani met to discuss “mineral supply chains” was Rothschilds, which has extensive interests in Ukraine.
Ghani held a discussion with the Paris-headquartered global advisory firm in April 2023 while her successor Alan Mak did so the following year in May. Mak met the firm “to discuss Rothschild’s critical minerals work”, the data shows.
The corporation was invited to the 2023 Ukraine Recovery Conference held in London and is a member of the UK-Ukraine Finance Partnership. It has also been the main adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance since 2017.
Rothschilds, on whose board sits former UK national security adviser Lord Mark Sedwill, has no less than $53 billion invested in Ukraine.
“British-Ukrainian Partnership”
Writing recently in Unherd, researcher Sang-Haw Lee quotes a senior Labour figure saying the UK was involved in extensive negotiations for the whole of last year relating to securing exclusive access to Ukraine’s minerals, but that adequate government support was not forthcoming.
Some other meetings have crept into the public domain. Last April, two prominent UK parliamentarians met one of Ukraine’s largest mining investment companies in London to discuss “British-Ukrainian partnership in the field of critical minerals mining.”
BGV Group, which has investments of $100 million in Ukrainian mining projects, held discussions with then energy minister Lord Martin Callanan and Bob Seely, then a Conservative MP who sat on parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
The company is seeking investors for its graphite and beryllium projects and said in a media release that “Ukraine has all the prerequisites to become one of Britain’s main suppliers of critical minerals crucial for advanced technologies and the green energy transition.”
“As Ukraine’s ultimate European ally, the UK could leverage its strong position within NATO to help secure mining sites and transportation routes,” writes Andriy Dovbenko, the founder of UK-Ukraine TechExchange.
Related: ‘Let’s just fight’: How Britain prefers war over peace in Ukraine, Declassified UK, 9 December 2024
“Vast Resources”
The UK government’s ‘Ukraine Business Guide’ notes that “Ukraine has vast resources” and “a rich mineral base of iron ore, manganese, coal and titanium.”
Certainly, enhancing access to critical minerals has been a broad priority across Whitehall over the last three years.
The UK produced its first-ever Critical Minerals Strategy in 2022 and updated this with a “refresh” the following year. It identifies 18 minerals with “high criticality” for the UK, including several present in Ukraine, such as graphite, lithium and rare earth elements.
The UK’s strategy aims, among other things, to “support UK companies to participate overseas” in supply chains for these minerals and “champion London as the world’s capital of responsible finance for critical minerals.”
As part of its critical minerals strategy, the government set up a so-called Task & Finish group, analysing the risks to UK industry, and including participants from BAE, Rio Tinto and ADS. The group highlights titanium, rare earth elements, cobalt and gallium as among the minerals with a supply risk to the UK military sector.
The UK has also launched a Critical Mineral Intelligence Centre and established a Critical Minerals Expert Committee to advise the government.
A report by the foreign affairs committee on critical minerals published in December 2023 concluded that “the UK cannot afford to leave itself vulnerable on supply chains that are of such strategic importance.”
A sign of how seriously the government is taking the issues is that it says it will “ensure consideration for critical minerals is embedded” in the free trade agreements it is negotiating with a range of countries.
Related: Keir Starmer’s plan for UK growth – the Ukraine war, Declassified UK, 26 February 2025
“Regulatory Structures”
Accessing minerals overseas often depends on loosening government regulations to enable foreign corporations to strike favourable deals.
The 100-year partnership declaration commits the UK and Ukraine to “supporting development of a Ukrainian critical minerals strategy and necessary regulatory structures required to support the maximisation of benefits from Ukraine’s natural resources, through the possible establishment of a Joint Working Group.”
The thrust of the partnership is to “support a more enabling environment for private sector participation in the clean energy transition” and to “attract investments of British companies in the development of renewable energy sources.”
More generally, the two sides will “work together to boost and modernise Ukraine’s economy by progressing reforms that aim to attract private finance” and “boost investor confidence.”
As Declassified recently showed, British aid to Ukraine is focused on promoting these pro-private sector reforms and on pressing the government in Kyiv to open up its economy to foreign investors.
Foreign Office documents on its flagship aid project in Ukraine, which supports privatisation, note that the war provides “opportunities” for Ukraine delivering on “some hugely important reforms.”
The UK supports a project called SOERA (State-owned enterprises reform activity in Ukraine), which is funded by USAID with the UK Foreign Office as a junior partner.
SOERA works to “advance privatisation of selected SOEs [state-owned enterprises], and develop a strategic management model for SOEs remaining in state ownership.”
UK documents note the programme has already “prepared the groundwork” for privatisation, a key plank of which is to change Ukraine’s legislation.
“SOERA worked hand-in-hand with GoU and proposed 25 pieces of legislation of which 13 were adopted and implemented,” the most recent documents note.
“Geostrategic Rivalries”
Much UK foreign policy and wars can be explained by Whitehall wanting British corporations to get their hands on other countries’ resources.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was mainly about oil while decades earlier the UK’s brutal war in Malaya in the 1950s was substantially about rubber. Britain’s support for apartheid South Africa is significantly explained by the UK wanting continued access to South Africa’s massive mineral resources.
But the main concern now is China, which is the biggest producer of 12 out of the 18 minerals assessed by the UK as critical.
The Ministry of Defence’s major geopolitical forecast, its ‘Global Strategic Trends’, released last year, makes 57 mentions of minerals, noting that they “will become of increasing geopolitical importance” and could lead to “new geostrategic rivalries and tensions.”
History suggests that Whitehall’s international strategy on critical minerals, and its scramble for Ukraine’s, will continue to shape UK foreign policy and contribute to these future international tensions.
About the Author
Mark Curtis is the co-director of Declassified UK and the author of five books and many articles on UK foreign policy.
Featured image taken from ‘UK played a key role as Ukraine ready to accept ceasefire proposal: Report’, Eastern Eye, 12 March 2025
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Categories: Breaking News, World News
A one hundred year agreement with Zelensky means nothing, he is no longer the president of Ukraine and as soon as he is deposed with the agreement will cease to be. Starmer is a fool.
Zalensky last september went to usa and offered the 500 billion deal to trump, if he got elected.Then he signed with uk, however his presidensy ran out 8 months ago, and costitutionally he cannot sign over anything after that
To complete the picture of this supposed “geostrategic competition for rare elements (which are key to the fourth industrial revolution). Supposedly the most realistic assumption is that each of the world’s major powers wants to take advantage in the era of the great reset techno-dystopia, and so on.
This, from there:
“in general that the main minerals are located in the areas which joined Russia in the autumn of 2022. It has been repeatedly said in the past few weeks that the areas that are now under Russia’s control have major deposits of lithium, the demand for which is growing.”
..
“On the evening of February 24, Vladimir Putin convened a meeting dedicated to the development of the rare earth industry. This issue has already been on the head of state’s radar: at the forum on future technologies last week, the president stated the need to increase their production several times. The development of this industry in Russia is the most important resource base for the modern economy, since rare metals are in demand in microelectronics, energy, in the creation of infrastructure for the digital economy, and in many sectors of the civil and defense sectors, Vladimir Putin said. In essence, we are talking about almost all sectors of the new technological order, which sets the dynamics of global progress. By 2030, Russia should create a full cycle of processing rare earth metals, which is necessary for the development of the country’s economy and defense industry, as well as for successful competition in world markets.”
(A little later, in an interview in Russia, Putin invited “American partners” to dig Russian rare elements; “Russia has much more,” Putin said.)
“This issue has already been on the head of state’s radar: at the forum on future technologies last week“.
Future technologies forum, one of the sessions there:
“Human 2.0 Technologies
21 February 2025 (Conference hall, World Trade Center Moscow)
Preview
No longer relegated to the annals of science fiction, cyborgization is here, and it’s already helping to improve the quality of life of millions of people. Bionic prosthetics, exoskeletons, and brain-computer interfaces restore body function and expand the realm of what is possible. Bionic limbs, for example, connect to nerve endings and muscles and provide feedback directly to the body for more intuitive control and sensitivity to pressure, temperature, and texture. The real challenge is to integrate devices with the user nervous system, impossible without the integration of multiple disciplines and cutting-edge solutions combining materials science, electronics, robotics, and neurophysiology. What will Human 2.0 look like? Just how promising is cyborgization? How do products align with demand? How does Human 2.0 stand to benefit from interdisciplinarity?”
A little more precisely about Putin’s words (without we do not forget that it is said that most of the rare earth deposits in Ukraine are located in the territories annexed to Russia):
Vladimir Putin’s full interview with Pavel Zarubin
(February 25) (transcript, fragment)
“P. Zarubin: Mr President, we have just watched your meeting on rare earth metals. Sorry, but I think that now all journalists in the world are interested in rare earth metals, but in a slightly different aspect. After all, the United States, to put it very mildly, is urging Zelensky to sign an agreement with them on these resources to pay for aid to Ukraine by the previous Administration – the Biden Administration. How do you assess the prospects for such an agreement?
V. Putin: This does not concern us. I don’t evaluate it in any way and I don’t even want to think about it. Of course, it would be necessary to assess these resources, how real they are, how many of these resources, how much they cost, and so on. But this, I repeat, is not our business. Our business is what we have just discussed at the meeting. Rare earth metals are a very important component, very important resources for modern sectors of the economy. We are not doing much in this direction so far, we must do more. And the meaning of today’s meeting is aimed at concentrating the administrative resource for work in this area at the first stage.
By the way, we would be ready to offer cooperation to our American partners – when I say partners, I mean not only administrative and government agencies, but also companies – if they showed interest in working together.
We certainly have an order of magnitude more resources of this kind than in Ukraine. Russia is one of the undisputed leaders in terms of reserves of these rare and rare-earth metals. We also have them in the North – in Murmansk, in the Caucasus – in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the Far East, in the Irkutsk region, and in Yakutia, in Tuva. These are quite capital-intensive investments, capital-intensive projects. We would be happy to work together with any foreign partners, including American ones.
Yes, by the way, as for the new territories, it is the same: we are ready to attract foreign partners, and our so-called new historical territories, which have returned to the Russian Federation, also have certain reserves there. We are ready to work with our foreign partners, including American ones, there as well.
P. Zarubin: In the new regions too?
V. Putin: Yes, of course.
…
(the interview ends with:)
“Pavel Zarubin: By the way, a few minutes ago I read another piece of news from the United States: President Trump said that the United States and Russia are discussing major economic projects as part of the negotiations on Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, some of our companies are in contact with each other and are discussing such projects.
Zarubin: Thank you very much.
Putin: Thank you.”
Tass.ru, March 12:
MOSCOW. There are opportunities for economic cooperation between Russia and the United States, including with regard to the development of rare earth elements. However, this is not yet being discussed, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said at a briefing, answering a question from TASS.
“President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin is talking about potential opportunities for broad interaction and cooperation in the field of a wide range of economic projects, including in the area you mentioned,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
At the end of February, Putin said that Russia was ready to consider major economic projects with the United States, including within the framework of the Ukrainian settlement. Among them, the Russian leader singled out the extraction of rare earth elements and the production of aluminum. According to the Russian president, these are capital-intensive projects that require investment.
U.S. President Donald Trump has shown particular interest in the development and extraction of rare earth metals, a key element in modern microelectronics and high technology. The Kremlin noted that an investment partnership between Moscow and Washington is possible, but only after the restoration of relations between the two countries and the settlement of Ukraine.”
So, according to Occam’s razor, it seems most logical that if rare elements are the most important for building the modern infrastructure for the digital economy and blah blah (for the 4IR dystopia after a great reset, to put it more clearly), and if there are such significant deposits in Ukraine, it seems as if the USA under the Democrats has launched an offensive to conquer the deposits. Or rather, it seems that Putin and company have realized that the U.S. is preparing to take advantage of the deposits in Ukraine to take advantage of the supposed primacy in the era of the high-tech great reset, and have launched a counteroffensive, invading Ukraine to conquer the deposits. For example.
I say that there is no competition, but there is a partnership, but anyway.
See now a short excerpt from a 2007 forecast for the supposed impending race in the era of the “post-silicon period”, as it is called there (the images – in response below):
“Order of the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation [V.B. Khristenko] of August 7, 2007 No. 311 “On Approval of the Strategy for the Development of the Electronic Industry of Russia for the Period up to 2025”
October 16, 2007
..
8. Timeline and stages of implementation of the Strategy The Strategy will be implemented in 2007-2025 in three stages: the first stage – 2007-2011; second stage – 2012-2015; Third stage – 2016-2025
..
Today, it is obvious that Russia’s further lagging behind in such a key area of industry as the production of electronic components is extremely dangerous and unacceptable, since it will not allow the transition from a “raw-based” economy to a “knowledge” economy ..
..
It is obvious that the structure of the electronic equipment market will change due to the emergence of new promising and capacious segments, such as radio frequency identification systems, including electronic passports with biometric data..
..
One of the most important areas of application of radio frequency identification is the electronic passport. Work in this direction is currently being actively carried out in the Russian Federation.
..
.. wireless sensor networks based on intelligent sensors that monitor the state of soil, crops and the movement of livestock in animal husbandry, as well as the main technological parameters of production processes are similar to remote monitoring systems in healthcare, etc.
The use of these technologies in agriculture will provide a sharp reduction in costs due to the rational use of fertilizers, a decrease in the mortality of livestock and poultry, as well as a timely warning of the spread of epidemics dangerous to humans among animals.
..
In addition, a significant increase in the use of fully automated weapons in microminiature design, based on the use of micromechanical systems, the number of which can be estimated at millions of units, is expected
…”
And so on, “forecasts”, some of which “came true”, actively after 2020, others are in the process of coming true and are forthcoming, but the most interesting is the Third Stage of the Strategy 2016-2025, just one more comment (because they become very long).
“Order of the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation [V.B. Khristenko] of August 7, 2007 No. 311 “On Approval of the Strategy for the Development of the Electronic Industry of Russia for the Period up to 2025”
October 16, 2007
..
8. Timeline and stages of implementation of the Strategy The Strategy will be implemented in 2007-2025 in three stages: the first stage – 2007-2011; second stage – 2012-2015; Third stage – 2016-2025“
..
The main goal of the third stage (2016-2025) of the implementation of the Strategy is to ensure the full revival of the domestic electronics industry, competitive with similar industries of developed countries, integrated with leading foreign firms.
At this stage, the main efforts should be aimed at solving the following tasks:
– integration within the framework of international programs for the development of electronics with developed countries and leading electronics firms;
– gaining significant positions in a number of sectors of the global market of electronic components;
– wide introduction of the achievements of domestic nanotechnology, BIOELECTRONICS and microsystem technology in everyday human life, in the fields of healthcare, education, housing and communal services, transport and communications.
…
Forecasts for the development of electronics in the post-silicon period (after 2020) suggest the widespread introduction of nanotechnology achievements in industry.
..
During this period of time, the industry needs to be prepared for a sharp increase in the cost of technical re-equipment, since the cost of nanoequipment complexes is several times higher than the cost of traditional means of technological equipment for microelectronics. Therefore, for the period 2016-2025, the budget should provide for at least a 3-5-fold increase in resources for the technical re-equipment of facilities for the priority development of the production of nanoelectronics products.
The introduction of nanotechnology should further expand the depth of its penetration into the daily life of the population. It is necessary to ensure the constant connection of each individual with global information and control networks such as the Internet.
Nanoelectronics will be integrated with biological objects and will provide continuous control over their life support, improve the quality of life, and thus reduce social costs of the state.
Built-in wireless nanoelectronic devices that provide constant contact between a person and the surrounding intellectual environment will become widespread, and means of direct wireless contact of the human brain with surrounding objects, vehicles and other people will become widespread. The circulation of such products will exceed billions of pieces per year due to their ubiquity.”
…
Domestic industry must be prepared for this challenge, since the ability to produce all components of network systems will mean the establishment of de facto control over all their users, which is unacceptable for many countries from the point of view of preserving their sovereignty. A similar point of view is shared by experts from the EU countries in connection with the global expansion of electronics manufacturers from Southeast Asia and the intention of the United States to ensure permanent technological leadership in this area. Therefore, in the period 2016-2025, we should expect another strengthening of the role of electronics in the life of society and be economically ready for a new round of global competition between countries based on nanoelectronic technology.
At the same time, the appearance of industrial production will increasingly resemble microelectronic and pharmaceutical production, rather than the traditional instrument-building and machine-building industries that exist at present.
..
4. Main programme activities
..
At the third stage (2016-2025), the Strategy is supposed to be implemented within the framework of a new federal target program, which will be developed taking into account the implementation of the Federal Target Program “Development of the Electronic Component Base and Radio Electronics” and will provide:
..
– Widespread introduction of the achievements of domestic nanotechnology, bioelectronics and microsystem technology in everyday life in the fields of healthcare, education, housing and communal services, transport and communications.
….
6. Conclusion
..
Taking into account the high potential level of domestic science in the field of electronics, by 2025 we can expect a significant development of international scientific and technical cooperation and a breakthrough in the field of new technologies, including nanotechnology, bioelectronics, optoelectronics, quantum computers, etc.
..
Minister of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation V.B. Khristenko”
Coincidentally, this former minister of Industry V. B. Hristenko – Viktor Borisovich Hristenko, a wealthy man and businessman, President of the Business Council of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – is the husband of deputy prime minister Tatyana Golikova. On January 29, 2020, Tatyana Golikova headed the operational headquarters for the prevention of the “import and spread” of “covid19 coronavirus infection” in the Russian Federation. So – leading the pressure team – including mandatory vaccination in many sectors – on Russians to inject themselves with what’s in the injections. (What’s in them?)
October 21, 2022 – Tatiana Golikova will oversee the development of genetic technologies…oversee the “direction for the accelerated development of genetic technologies.” This direction has its own federal program…The program involves the creation of genomic research centers, the development of genetic editing technologies.
Order of the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation [V.B. Khristenko] of August 7, 2007 No. 311 “On Approval of the Strategy for the Development of the Electronic Industry of Russia for the Period up to 2025”
October 16, 2007 – link
In this video explanations why the green push is rubbish. Not enough rare earth minerals. Why we need fossils fuels and alternatives to power earth that are not nuclear but clean. Thorium.
https://youtu.be/F7qjP9Mgmc8?si=HL3fMHy5rf2DExOg
This world won’t last another 10 years
What? Enslaving people in other countries by stealing their resources? Who’d have thought it of the scrag end of the “empire”? Next stop “loans” to rebuild the country… no, wait…
The agricultural land is the priority for many (as posted earlier on another site, loo at the date (just after the coup !?) – https://lefteast.org/ukraine-agrees-to-monsanto-land-grab-for-17-billion-imf-loan/
GM crops into the UK and EU … the governments of all, have already passed CHANGE LAWS to allow it.
Ukraine does have a bit of oil, but I read somewhere that they also had Lithium.
But agree with you comment 100% … well 99.5%.
All this talk about the rare Minerals in Ukraine is rather surprising. If this is factual, why has the Ukraine not been mining it for their war effort? Suppose this is bluff, is there really all this money lying underground, where is the geology to prove the amounts that seem to have attracted a bunch of vultures to gather?
[…] Když se ministr zahraničí David Lammy setkal se Zelenským minulý měsíc v Kyjevě, údajně nastolil otázku nerostů, „znamení, že Starmerova vláda má stále zájem získat přístup k ukrajinskému bohatství“, uvedl iPaper. […]