by Jonas Goldman*
A narrative has emerged that Ukraine’s mineral wealth is a prize that can drastically change the energy security and global power balance for whichever great power possess it. This is mostly fantasy and, for any power other than Europe, Ukraine’s mineral wealth is pretty much insignificant.
There is nothing that Ukraine has, that can’t be obtained in greater quantities and quality elsewhere on Earth.
Before delving into what Ukraine does and doesn’t have, it is important to distinguish between resources and reserves. Resources are what is present in the ground, while reserves are deposits for which there is confidence that commercially viable quantities of a mineral can be extracted.
Given that on average it takes sixteen years for a deposit to go from exploration to extraction, twelve of which are devoted to determining deposit viability, the difference between resources and reserves is critical. Taken together, in the short to mid-term of five to fifteen years, Ukraine’s minerals will not fundamentally alter the global critical minerals landscape.
But as U.S. President Donald Trump aggressively pursues a trade war and the annexation of territories—like Greenland—to secure natural resources, access to Ukraine’s minerals could further fray transatlantic ties. Given Europe’s dearth of natural resources and limited ability to project military power to secure supplies, even Kyiv’s almost anecdotal wealth could be worth driving a hard bargain over.
Ukraine does have significant uranium deposits, but at only two percent of known economically recoverable resources. It is a drop in the bucket, and far less important than recoverable resources in Australia which possess 28 percent, Kazakhstan with 13 percent, Canada at 10 percent, and Niger with 5 percent.
It has nearly one percent of global titanium reserves, and less than one percent of graphite reserves. For both titanium, and graphite, securing access to reserves in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Southeastern Africa, is far more strategically pressing in the global competition between great powers.
Studies that date back to when the USSR occupied Ukraine showed that there are known rare earth and lithium resources, but no recent serious exploration has been carried out to determine whether these are commercially viable. According to S&P Global’s mining projects database, an industry benchmark, there are no current projects in any phase of development in Ukraine for either rare earths or lithium.
Hence, what is actually in Ukraine’s dirt that can be readily accessed is, for the United States, inconsequential strategically. But it hasn’t prevented the Trump administration from attempting to strong-arm Kyiv into an extractive rare earths deal, which was one of the triggers for the humiliation of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office at the end of February.
Instead, what Ukraine’s minerals most likely provide for the Trump administration is an after-the-fact justification for the United States to pursue more traditional bipartisan foreign policies. With the current U.S. administration’s transactional and isolationist approach, traditional foreign policy voices have to justify policies that would have been viewed as a given in previous administrations.
If the United States no longer seeks to backstop European security, policymakers of the old Atlanticist order need a justification to sell the American presence and support for Ukraine. Securing access to critical minerals in light of the strategic competition with China provides a robust rationale for American involvement. It is about securing the U.S. strategic advantage rather than standing up for values and the security of European allies, a proposition that is becoming harder and harder to defend in the hallways of Washington D.C.
But from the European point of view, it is a slightly different story.
For Europe, Ukraine’s resources are more significant as it is far more lacking in continental reserves relative to its strategic peers: China, Russia, or the United States. Exceptions exist of course: Germany and Finland have small lithium deposits, and Norway has graphite and titanium. But of the notable minerals Ukraine is being marketed for, Europe is so barren of known reserves that even Ukraine’s relatively marginal reserves move the needle.
Europe’s lack of reserves on its own is arguably not that significant a problem. What is a problem is that the continent does not have a secure way to access the mineral reserves it lacks. When European colonial powers originally went on conquering missions, a goal of their overseas possessions had been to return raw materials that were lacking in their mother countries.
When the empires collapsed, the former colonial powers were left with significant supply chain securitization problems. Europe’s vulnerability was driven home by the Suez Crisis, and the transition to new energy systems will not fundamentally alter the geographic dynamic that has been in place since.
While countries like France, Italy, and the UK do possess blue water navies, they are dwarfed by their American counterpart. They will struggle to be everywhere all at once, as is required to secure global shipping. Consequently, Europe will have a fundamental problem breaking out of its “Permanent Suez” and securing minerals for its industrial supply chains.
To ensure the security of supply for European states, reserves will either need to be found in a location close enough for European powers to project force to, or Europe will need to develop new naval capacity and arrangements. Due to both the poverty of its soils and the limits of its current power, Ukraine’s reserves do become, slightly, more important as a near-abroad source for Europe.
Kyiv is on a fast-track EU accession process and, as such, the EU’s competition rules already apply. How the Trump administration and the von der Leyen European Commission negotiate any mineral deals with Ukraine will be worth watching. Like their divergences on how to handle the Ukrainian regions Russia currently occupies, access to Kyiv’s mineral wealth could add to the growing potential transatlantic tinderbox.
*policy analyst with experience in public service, academia, and electoral politics in the United States and Canada. He has served as a researcher on climate industrial policy for the Smart Prosperity Institute, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and is a senior research associate at the Johns Hopkins Net-Zero Industrial Policy Lab.
**first published in carnegieendowment.org
By: N. Peter Kramer
