Today at 12:01
The administration of US President Donald Trump has returned to the proposed subsoil deal the requirement for Ukraine to reimburse all the assistance that the United States provided after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The text of the grand agreement states that Ukraine undertakes to compensate the United States for the cost of all assistance – budgetary, military and humanitarian – provided after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
This amount is designated as the “DFC Initial Contribution” to the Fund.
The amount of aid to be returned is estimated at $123 billion, according to the Kiel Institute. Most of this money was spent on military support, including ordering weapons from American manufacturers, transferring surplus weapons, and replenishing Pentagon stockpiles.
According to the text of the agreement, Ukraine has to convert the Fund’s income into dollars and transfer it to the accounts of the American side upon request without any fees. If such costs are incurred, they will also have to be compensated.
The sources of the Fund’s income will be:
50% of the value of all new licenses and royalties for the development of Ukraine’s subsoil;
50% of revenues from infrastructure facilities (the details of this clause are not disclosed in the agreement).
It is also stipulated that the Fund will be able to reinvest part of the revenues in projects in Ukraine, receiving 50% of the state’s future profits from these investments.
In addition, the agreement obliges Ukraine to repay the “debt” to the United States on time, as it provides for an annual increase of 4%. This means that the longer Kyiv delays payments, the more money it will have to compensate.
Earlier, the Ukrainian government, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, emphasized that non-refundable US aid cannot be turned into debt.
This issue was one of the main “red lines” for Kyiv.
On February 28, the agreement was ready to be signed. After emotional negotiations, Ukraine and the United States reached a compromise on the document, and it was to be certified in Washington, D.C., in the presence of the two presidents.
However, on that day, the meeting in the Oval Office began with a public spat between Zelenskyy and Trump. The presidential talks were canceled.
Zelenskyy said earlier that the United States had offered Ukraine a new version of the minerals agreement, which would immediately require ratification in parliament beyond the original framework agreement.
On March 27, he said that there is currently no final version of the agreement on the use of Ukrainian mineral resources with the United States, which the Trump administration expects to sign in the near future.
