In Polokhivka, central Ukraine, time seems to have stood still. Only a handful of people live in this Ukrainian village, the houses are empty and dilapidated, and stubble stretches to the horizon. It's no different in the neighboring village of Kopanky, where there is almost nothing but abandoned houses. According to the few people left in the village, only one child was born here in a year.
People have left Kopanky because there is no work. A bus goes to the village only twice a week. “I started working here in 1976“, says pensioner Vladimir from Kopanky. “I was the 400th worker on the collective farm, and now there are probably not even 100 residents left. There are only funerals, no weddings, nothing is the same as before".
Donald Trump has hardly ever heard of Polokhivka or Kopanky. And yet the US president is interested in this area - or rather, what lies underground. Here, in central Ukraine, is one of the largest lithium deposits in the country.
Awaiting a deal for raw materials
This lithium could become part of the so-called raw materials deal between Ukraine and the US. The initial attempt to conclude it failed in February, and the two sides have not yet been able to agree on a final version of the text.
That there are lithium deposits in Ukraine has been known since the 1970s. However, the deposit under Polokhivka and Kopanky is the only one that has already been explored by modern standards. All other developments date back to the Soviet era. However, lithium ore has never been mined in Ukraine.
In 2017, the Ukrainian company UkrLithiumMining received permission to develop the Polokhivka deposit. After the latest survey between 2018 and 2020, it became clear that the deposit is the largest in Europe with reserves of about 40 million tons of lithium.
The company's director Mykhailo Heichenko said on Ukrainian television that the initial test drillings, some of which are more than 600 meters deep, promise the extraction of up to one and a half million tons of ore per year over a period of 20 years. However, more than this has not been done, and according to the municipal authorities in Smolin, there is currently no work on the site.
Local authorities are concerned that plans to exploit the deposit are not progressing. As early as 2023 they criticized UkrLithiumMining's approach as unsatisfactory and called on the company to speed up the procedure. A statement published on its website in March said that the “Polokhivka“ deposit belongs to the Ukrainian people, but that the company had received permission to develop it and paid the equivalent of about 2.6 million euros for it.
Concerns over possible environmental damage
Locals DW spoke to hope that future mining will create jobs in the region. At the same time, there are also concerns about the environmental consequences.
“We are not against it, but we must make sure that we will not be left without water and roads and that our infrastructure will be expanded. Of course, we want this to happen quickly and for the money to go to the municipal budget," says Tetiana from Kopanki.
The mayor of Smolyne, Mykola Mazura, shares concerns that the development of the deposit could lead to a water shortage. "We recently learned that UkrLithiumMining wants to drill wells at different depths and use the water from them for mining. This would be a disaster, because people's wells could dry up within a radius of several kilometers. The water is already decreasing due to climate change and other reasons - there are lakes that are already drying up," says the mayor.
UkrLithiumMining refers to its own EIA (environmental impact assessment) study and claims that if the Polokhivka deposit is developed, the extraction of water for technical purposes "will not affect the springs used by the population." And in response to the accusations that everything is going too slowly, the company said that the feasibility study is ready.
First drafts of an agreement for the extraction of raw materials?
To date, a total of four lithium deposits have been explored in Ukraine. Two of them are located in territories occupied by Russia - the "Kruta-Balka" deposit in the Zaporizhia region and the "Shevchenko" deposit in the Donetsk region. Two others are located in Central Ukraine - this one near Polokhivka and another one near Dobra. The latter is considered even more promising - according to Ukrainian geologist Bogdan Slobodian, it could be twice as large as the one in Polokhivka. But the last time it was explored was during Soviet times.
In early March, the “Financial Times“ reported that the Irish company TechMet was interested in developing the Dobra deposit and wanted to participate in a tender. TechMet's partner is billionaire Ronald Lauder, a friend of US President Donald Trump. According to the report, this could be one of the first projects under the raw materials agreement between the US and Ukraine - if it is signed. It is possible that the planned lithium mining in Polokhivka will then begin.
Author: Marina Barba