Ukraine’s mineral riches could bankroll its postwar future. But what does Trump’s deal really mean?

The giant excavator working in the quarry near the central Ukrainian town of Zhytomyr rarely stops scooping, removing earth and precious titanium ore 24 hours a day. 

“Ukraine possesses approximately 20 per cent of the world’s titanium reserves,” operations manager Dmytro Holik told CBC News, as the noise of the excavator blared in the distance. 

“I am very interested that Ukraine can become a global or European titanium hub.”

On that point, Holik and U.S. President Donald Trump would appear to share common ground.

After weeks of painful — and often public — negotiations between American and Ukrainian officials, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to arrive in Washington on Friday to formally sign a natural resources pact with Trump.

Yet the Ukrainian leader is sounding rather unclear about what exactly he and Trump have agreed to. 

“This deal could be a great success, or it could pass quietly,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday. “And the big success depends on our conversation with President Trump.”

The basic outline of the deal calls for Ukraine to put money from future natural resources projects in Ukraine into an investment fund that both the U.S. and Ukraine would control. In return, Zelenskyy wants Trump to offer his country security guarantees after the war with Russia ends.

But Trump appears to have other ideas. He told reporters in the Oval Office this week that he’s not going to offer any guarantees — even as he touted the financial benefits of the minerals framework.

“We’ve been able to make a deal where we’re going to get our money back,” Trump said, referring to the $120 billion US of military and financial aid that the Biden administration provided Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

As Zelensky has stressed, the congressional allocation for Ukraine was not, in fact, a loan.

Strong, dense, lightweight

The titanium facility in Zhytomyr is operated by Ukrainian conglomerate Group DF and has been in operation since 2011. While a lot of the world’s titanium is used in steel making, the shimmering grey ore processed here is destined for other end products — electronics, engineering and as a whitener for paper making.

Titanium’s strength and density, along with its light weight, makes it extremely valuable. The element is on the U.S. list of minerals considered critical to its economy.

Ukraine has had a titanium industry since Soviet times, but Holik says it has struggled with a lack of investment and an unstable political situation.

“The more developed the industry is, the lower the cost of production,” he said. “If one entrepreneur is engaged in titanium, bringing spare parts from abroad, for example, or bringing some new equipment from abroad, logistics and cost will be very high. If it’s done by two entrepreneurs, [or] three, four, five, then it becomes a hub.”

That’s why Holik says Trump’s mineral pact has the potential to draw in investors and create interest, even if the details of the framework still need fleshing out.

Strategic partner

Andreii Loktiev, a geologist with a PhD and extensive experience in the private sector in Ukraine, says having the U.S. as a strategic partner in the development of Ukrainian minerals would be significant.

“It is about access to technologies here in Ukraine, because we don’t have … appropriate technologies to develop those [mineral] fields,” he said.

Ukraine’s government estimates up to five per cent of the world’s critical minerals — including titanium, graphite, lithium  and beryllium — can be found in the country. 

But if Trump or Zelensky are looking for a quick return on their pact, they’ll be disappointed, says Loktiev, who served as an infantryman in the Ukrainian army in the first 18 months of the war with Russia.

“The very quickest way [forward] for a new project is from three to five years — and that’s [if] you will be willing to push very fast,” he said.

Loktiev and others in the industry argue the biggest impediment to unlocking the wealth underground in Ukraine remains the war itself.

Another critical mineral

Another critical mineral, graphite, is found in a wide range of industrial and consumer products, from automotive parts to pencils.

CBC News visited a graphite operation about 200 kilometres south of Kyiv, in Kirovohrad oblast.

Like titanium, the green-tinged ore is dug up in a quarry and separated and processed in a nearby facility. But unlike the titanium operation, which runs constantly, this facility barely eked out two weeks of graphite processing in 2024.

“Unfortunately because of the war, they [the owners] don’t have possibilities and opportunities to invest more money,” said Ostap Kostyuk, CEO of Zavalivskiy Graphite, which has a 30 per cent stake in the operation. The rest is owned by Australian mining firm Volt.

The graphite operation in Kirovohrad is also extremely old. Some of the machinery used to separate and grind up the ore was installed during the 1960s, when the mine employed thousands of workers.

Kostyuk said the 850 tonnes of graphite it produced last year was just a fraction of its 13,500-tonne capacity. But without investment to modernize equipment, train new workers and develop new markets, the mine’s future is limited, despite it having decades’ worth of supply. 

“I think the first step is to access [global] companies who will come to Ukraine and open their own mines and then we will see changes,” he said.

But Kostyuk insisted “they have to pay for that.” He said any move to give U.S. companies tax- or royalty-free status will be opposed not only by the country’s mining industry, but most Ukrainians.

He says if Trump’s minerals deal acts as a catalyst to end the war, it will be worthwhile. But it’s too early to know. 

“I hope that it will give us new opportunities, but I don’t think Trump knows what it will give us, and I don’t think Zelenskyy knows what it will give us.”

Suspicions remain

Many Ukrainians remain suspicious of the U.S. president’s intentions.

CBC News met a group of war veterans at a fundraising event in Kyiv, as Ukraine’s government was preparing to approve the minerals deal.

All had lost limbs in the current conflict.

“I don’t believe there’s a reason to give the Americans any natural resources,” said Bogdan Kovbasyuk, a 27-year-old whose left leg was blown off when a Russian missile hit near his front-line position in the eastern Donbas region.

“I don’t trust them, considering the propaganda in the U.S. about Putin,” he said. 

Trump has said he believes Russia’s president wants peace and to end the war, a notion most Ukrainians scoff at.

“I think that America hasn’t yet earned the right to take as many of our natural resources as they want,” said David Jung, 50, who lost a leg when a Russian anti-tank missile struck his vehicle, flipping it over and pinning him under it.

“There needs to be a proper balance — not just them giving us weapons.”