The draft agreement on Ukrainian minerals, prepared by the US, contains a request to transfer control of the Gazprom pipeline, which runs through Ukraine to Europe, to a US government corporation, Reuters reported, citing its sources.
According to them, the parties discussed the draft agreement on Friday in Washington. According to the agency, the consultations were very tense, and the prospects for achieving success - small.
“The negotiations are taking place in a very antagonistic environment“, the source told Reuters, pointing to the “megalomaniac“ nature of the project presented by the US administration in March. The US Treasury Department said the consultations were "technical in nature".
As the agency notes, the Ukrainian government has hired the law firm Hogan Lovells as an external consultant on the minerals agreement. According to Reuters, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal and Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko will travel to Washington in two weeks to attend the spring session of the governing bodies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as a ministerial meeting on the situation in Ukraine on April 25.
The signing of the minerals agreement was interrupted on February 28 after a dispute between Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump at a meeting at the White House. On March 27, Kiev announced that it had received a new version of the document from Washington, which turned out to be much stricter than the previous one. The new draft obliges Kiev to compensate for aid in the amount of more than $ 120 billion. The United States will gain control of an investment fund set up to rebuild Ukraine, which will collect deductions from Kiev's revenues from licensing fees and mineral rents. Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly said they are still working out their position, and Zelensky has complained that Washington is changing the terms. Trump has warned that if Zelensky tries to "walk away from the deal," he will be in "big trouble."