Ukraine’s parliament ratifies landmark minerals deal with US

Kyiv says woody ‘operational’ successful a fewer weeks, hopes it volition revive flagging US enactment against Russian aggression.

Ukrainian legislators person unanimously voted to ratify a minerals woody with the United States successful the anticipation of securing subject assistance to deter aboriginal Russian aggression.

The country’s parliament gave its assent to the agreement, which grants the US precedence entree to Ukrainian minerals and sets up an concern money for Ukraine’s reconstruction, with 338 members voting successful favour and nary against it.

Ukraine’s First Vice Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said connected Thursday that the deal, which stops abbreviated of offering information guarantees but has raised hopes of revived US support, was “the instauration of a caller exemplary of enactment with a cardinal strategical partner”.

The Ukrainian Parliament has ratified the historical Economic Partnership Agreement betwixt Ukraine and the United States.

This papers is not simply a ineligible conception — it is the instauration of a caller exemplary of enactment with a cardinal strategical partner. pic.twitter.com/pIkMG1gUVu

— Yulia Svyrydenko (@Svyrydenko_Y) May 8, 2025

The deal, signed by the US and Ukraine astatine the extremity of April, was approved contempt legislators’ concerns implicit a deficiency of item regarding issues specified arsenic however the reconstruction money volition beryllium governed and however contributions volition beryllium made.

In a quality league earlier that day, Svyrydenko had sought to assuage these concerns, indicating the woody would beryllium operational successful a fewer weeks.

“We person managed to guarantee that the statement is equitable. The cardinal rule is that absorption is 50-50. Neither broadside has an advantage, determination is nary dictatorship from either side, and decisions are taken by consensus,” she said.

Svyrydenko underlined connected X that the woody has nary “debt provisions”, absolving Ukraine from earlier US demands that it screen the repayment of billions of dollars successful subject assistance supplied by Washington since Russia invaded successful February 2022.

Ukraine managed to get the concession contempt getting disconnected to a atrocious commencement successful negotiations backmost successful February, erstwhile President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clashed with US President Donald Trump during a testy Oval Office sit-down.

Kyiv was initially hoping the US would supply information guarantees to assistance deter aboriginal Russian attacks, successful speech for preferential entree to Ukraine’s mineral resources.

But Washington refused, alternatively arguing that boosting its concern interests successful Ukraine would itself enactment arsenic a bulwark against Russia.

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Al Jazeera and quality agencies