Exchanging Ukraine’s rare earth metals for U.S. military aid is solid deal. Column by Vitaly Portnikov

U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement about wanting access to Ukrainian rare earth metals in exchange for continued aid to Ukraine sparked lively debate. But it’s worth noting that this wasn’t even Trump’s idea. The issue of Western access to Ukrainian rare earth metals was part of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s proposals when he visited Washington before the U.S. presidential election.

At the time, it was already clear that rare earth metals caught Trump’s attention during his meeting with the Ukrainian delegation. But this isn’t just about Zelenskyy’s proposals.

"Developing Ukraine’s rare earth deposits is a long-term issue. It’s not just about the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war and securing some level of safety for investors. It’s also about having the right technology to extract these resources."

Not to mention that much of Ukraine’s rare earth reserves are in Russian-occupied territory.

Meanwhile, military aid is an urgent issue — one that will determine Ukraine’s survival in the coming years of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Or the Russian-Ukrainian standoff, if you prefer, assuming the next few years don’t bring a full-scale war between the two countries. Either way, Ukraine needs military support. Trump and his team repeatedly said during the election campaign that they didn’t want to waste money on Ukraine, arguing that Ukraine couldn’t defeat Russia. He insisted that negotiations with Moscow were necessary and that spending billions on Ukraine was pointless.

But here’s the question: What happens if Trump realizes that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t willing to make any deals, even after Trump takes office? If Putin is set on dragging out the war indefinitely, then abandoning Ukraine would be a political disaster for the White House. So how would Trump justify, at least to his own voters, that he’s continuing or even increasing military aid after calling it a “waste of money”? Well, now we know how.

This might not even be about how the American president reacts to Russia’s position, but rather about the U.S. helping Ukraine to secure access to strategically important mineral deposits for its own future economic development. Though, to be fair, the U.S. hasn’t started extracting rare earth metals domestically yet, and figuring out how to do so remains a pressing issue for both the American government and businesses.

So, the idea of exchanging access to these deposits, which is still a very theoretical concept, for military aid that helps Ukraine survive as a state and keep its people on their land isn’t something to oppose. No one can predict how these deposits will actually be developed in the 2030s, 2040s, or 2050s. No one knows how technology will evolve or how crucial these resources will be in the next phase of technological progress. But right now, the interest in these deposits, trading air for real iron, so to speak, would be a solid deal with the new U.S. administration, if such a deal were to happen at all.

"In that sense, this aspect of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s proposal was a pretty smart attempt to get Donald Trump interested in this economic "air" that could be swapped for military hardware."

And looking ahead, future American presidents and their successors may have a stake in restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, not just for abstract geopolitical reasons, but because of potential access to rare earth metals in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This means that when Russia inevitably faces serious political turmoil, it could create an opportunity to reclaim Ukrainian land, not just out of principle, but because the U.S. economy might have a strategic need for those resources.

At the same time, there’s a real risk here that shouldn’t be ignored: the way Western societies perceive this war could shift.

"If we frame it as a war over resources, we walk straight into a Russian propaganda trap."

The Kremlin has been saying all along that this war isn’t about Ukrainian sovereignty, language, or identity — because, in their view, Ukraine doesn’t exist. To them, there’s no Ukrainian people, no Ukrainian language, just Russians living on Russian land.

So then, the question arises: why did the West "invent" Ukraine and insist on keeping it around if, supposedly, it’s just part of Russia, with Kyiv as the "mother of Russian cities"? Well, according to Russian propaganda, it’s because the U.S. wants the mineral deposits.

"In this version of events, the West is fighting for rare earth metals, while Russia is fighting for what they see as sacred Russian land."

And from their perspective, Ukrainians defending their country are nothing more than mercenaries for the West, helping Trump and American oligarchs get their hands on Russia’s natural resources. This is the message the Kremlin will push to its people and to its supporters in the West. Because if an American president ever publicly says something along these lines, it plays right into their hands: "See? No one’s talking about sovereignty, NATO membership, or human rights. It’s all about rare earth metals."

That’s why, when negotiating any economic deals in exchange for military aid, Ukraine must hold its ground. The message must remain clear: this war is about sovereignty, about keeping Ukrainians in their homeland, and about preserving Ukrainian identity.

Because if that core motive is lost, then sooner or later, backroom deals over Ukraine’s resources will happen without Ukraine at the table. And in that case, the winner won’t be the country defending its land — it’ll be whoever makes the best offer for those deposits to the highest bidders.

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About the author. Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, National Shevchenko Prize laureate.

The editorial staff does not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.