Parliament backs amendments for implementing US minerals deal in 1st reading

The Ukrainian parliament supported Budget Code amendments to implement the minerals agreement with the U.S. in the first reading, lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak said on May 13.

This marks another step toward enacting the wide-ranging and long-contested economic agreement between Ukraine and the U.S.

The minerals deal, signed on April 30 and ratified by Ukraine on May 8, establishes a Reconstruction Investment Fund jointly managed by Kyiv and Washington and gives the U.S. special access to projects developing Ukraine’s vast deposits of critical minerals, including lithium, titanium, and rare earth elements.

“Amendments to the Budget Code are needed to implement the provisions on funding the U.S.-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund,” lawmaker Roksolana Pidlasa said.

Ukraine’s contribution will consist of half of the funds received after the agreement enters into force and will be sourced from rents for resource extraction under new licenses and issuance of new permits, the lawmaker added.

The changes were supported by 286 lawmakers, Zhelezniak said, adding that the deadline for submitting additional amendments was shortened. Ukrainian legislation has to pass two readings and receive a presidential signature before entering into force.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin may have gotten more than he bargained for when, on May 11, he rejected calls for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire and invited Ukraine to engage in direct talks in Istanbul later this week. In what may have been a surprise for the Russian leader, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded by accepting the invitation, saying he was ready to meet Putin in Turkey on May 15. “This is not what Putin was expecting,” Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and

The Kyiv IndependentChris York,