Ukraine’s mineral wealth has been a key think about its negotiations with the U.S. as the 2 nations work out particulars for a ceasefire settlement in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia.
After a rocky begin to these negotiations, officers from the U.S. and Ukraine introduced an settlement on March 11, 2025. The U.S. agreed to renew help and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, and each agreed to work towards “a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources to expand Ukraine’s economy, offset the cost of American assistance and guarantee Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security.” Getting Russia to comply with a ceasefire can be the following step.
There’s little question that Ukraine has an abundance of important minerals, or that these sources will probably be important to its postwar reconstruction. However what precisely do these sources embrace, and the way considerable and accessible are they?
The conflict has severely restricted entry to knowledge about Ukraine’s pure sources. Nonetheless, as a geoscientist with expertise in useful resource analysis, I’ve been studying technical stories, lots of them behind paywalls, to know what’s at stake. Right here’s what we all know.
Ukraine’s minerals gas industries and militaries
Ukraine’s mineral sources are concentrated in two geologic provinces. The bigger of those, generally known as the Ukrainian Defend, is a large belt working by the middle of the nation, from the northwest to the southeast. It consists of very previous, metamorphic and granitic rocks.
A multibillion-year historical past of fault motion and volcanic exercise created a variety of minerals concentrated in native websites and throughout some bigger areas.
A second province, near Ukraine’s border with Russia within the east, features a rift basin generally known as the Dnipro-Donets Despair. It’s full of sedimentary rocks containing coal, oil and pure gasoline.
Ukraine’s important mineral sources.
Ukrainian Geological Survey
Earlier than Ukraine’s independence in 1991, each areas equipped the Soviet Union with supplies for its industrialization and army. An enormous industrial space centered on steelmaking grew within the southeast, the place iron, manganese and coal are particularly plentiful.
By the 2000s, Ukraine was a major producer and exporter of those and different minerals. It additionally mines uranium, used for nuclear energy.
As well as, Soviet and Ukrainian geoscientists recognized deposits of lithium and uncommon earth metals that stay undeveloped.
Nonetheless, technical stories recommend that assessments of those and another important minerals are based mostly on outdated geologic knowledge, {that a} vital variety of mines are inactive because of the conflict, and that many make use of older, inefficient know-how.
That means important mineral manufacturing could possibly be elevated by peacetime overseas funding, and that these minerals might present even better worth than they do in the present day to whomever controls them.
Why the US is so
Essential minerals are outlined as sources which can be important to financial or nationwide safety and topic to produce dangers. They embrace minerals utilized in army gear, computer systems, batteries and lots of different merchandise.
A listing of fifty important minerals, created by the U.S. Geological Survey, reveals that greater than a dozen relied upon by the U.S. are considerable in Ukraine.
A majority of these are within the Ukrainian Defend, and roughly 20% of Ukraine’s whole potential reserves are in areas presently occupied by Russia’s army forces.
Graphite is mined from a quarry that’s about 120 meters deep in Zavallya, Ukraine.
Arsen Dzodzaiev/Anadolu by way of Getty Pictures
Essential minerals Ukraine presently mines
Three important minerals particularly considerable in Ukraine are manganese, titanium and graphite. Between 80% and 100% of U.S. demand for every of those presently comes from overseas imports..
Manganese is a necessary factor in steelmaking and batteries. Ukraine is estimated to have the biggest whole reserves on the planet at 2.4 billion tons. Nonetheless, the deposits are of pretty low grade – solely about 11% to 35% of the rock mined is manganese. So it tends to require a number of materials and costly processing, including to the whole value.
That is additionally true for graphite, utilized in battery electrodes and a wide range of industrial functions. Graphite happens in ore our bodies positioned within the south-central and northwestern portion of the Ukrainian Defend. Not less than six deposits have been recognized there, with an estimated whole of 343 million tons of ore– 18.6 million tons of precise graphite. It’s the biggest supply in Europe and the fifth largest globally.
Titanium, a key metallic for aerospace, ship and missile know-how, is current in as many as 28 places in Ukraine, each in onerous rock and sand or gravel deposits. The dimensions of the whole reserve is confidential, however estimates are generally within the a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of tons.
Staff function equipment at an open-pit titanium mine within the Zhytomyr area on Feb. 28, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Roman Pilipey/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Quite a few different important minerals which can be utilized in semiconductor and battery applied sciences are much less plentiful in Ukraine but in addition beneficial. Zinc happens in deposits with different metals equivalent to lead, gold, silver and copper. Gallium and germanium are byproducts of different ores – zinc for gallium, lignite coal for germanium. Nickel and cobalt may be present in ultramafic rock, with nickel extra considerable.
No figures for Ukraine’s reserves of those parts had been out there in early 2025, except for zinc, whose reserves have been estimated at round 6.1 million tons, placing Ukraine among the many prime 10 nations for zinc.
Essential minerals that aren’t being mined – but
Geologists have recognized doubtlessly vital volumes in Ukraine of three different kinds of important minerals vital for power, army and different makes use of: lithium, uncommon earth metals and scandium.
None of those had been mined there as of early 2025, although a lithium deposit had been licensed for business extraction.
The biggest potential lithium reserves exist at three websites within the south-central and southeastern Ukrainian Defend, the place the grade of ore is taken into account reasonable to good. How a lot lithium these reserves maintain stays confidential, however technical stories recommend it’s on the order of 160 million tons of ore and 1.6 million to three million tons of lithium oxide. If most of this could possibly be recovered in a worthwhile means, it might place Ukraine among the many prime 5 nations for lithium.
Smaller volumes of tantalum and niobium, additionally utilized in metal alloys and know-how, have additionally been recognized in these reserves. Most of Ukraine’s lithium happens as petalite, which, in contrast to the opposite predominant lithium mineral, spodumene, requires dearer processing.
Uncommon earth parts in Ukraine are recognized to exist in a number of websites of volcanic origin and in affiliation with uranium within the south-central portion of the Ukrainian Defend. These haven’t been developed, although sampling has indicated business potential in some websites, whereas different websites seem much less viable.
Regardless of the continued conflict, many mining corporations throughout the nation have continued their operations, extracting sources equivalent to titanium, graphite and beryllium.
Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Pictures
Uncommon earth parts in excessive demand for superior magnets and electronics – neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium – are all current in various quantities in these areas. Different important minerals are related to these deposits, particularly zirconium, tantalum and niobium, in undetermined however doubtlessly vital quantities.
Lastly, scandium, utilized in aluminum alloys for aerospace parts, has been recognized as a byproduct of processing titanium ores. Ukraine’s scandium doesn’t seem to have been studied in sufficient element to guage its business potential. Nonetheless, world manufacturing, about 30 to 40 tons per 12 months, is forecast to develop quickly.
Ukraine’s mineral future
It’s clear that Ukraine is endowed with beneficial sources. Nonetheless, extracting them would require roads and railways for entry, infrastructure equivalent to electrical energy and mining and processing know-how, funding, technical experience, environmental concerns and, above all, cessation of army battle.
These are the true determinants of Ukraine’s mining future.
This text, initially revealed March 11, 2025, has been up to date with the introduced settlement.
