Does Ukraine actually have the rare earth resources that Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims it possesses? While the Kyiv regime has published a portfolio of the country’s mineral riches, listing “rare earth metals,” the fact is that there simply aren’t known, economically exploitable resources of these elements that are so key to modern technologies. China is the world leader in proven rare earth reserves and production, and it provides 70% of U.S. imports of rare earths. This has been a particular concern of Donald Trump.
Kyiv’s portolio seems as if tailored to appeal to him. It has a page on “rare and rare earth metals,” which names the following elements: tantalum, niobium, titanium, beryllium, zirconium, tin, molybdenum, lithium, and zinc. It also refers to the Novopoltavske field, which is commercially unviable, as Ukraine’s Geological and Subsurface Survey acknowledges. While the named elements are certainly useful, none of them is among the 17 rare earth elements! The United States Geological Survey, a world leader in compiling information of this sort, does not include Ukraine in its listing of countries with rare earth production or reserves.
As a Bloomberg energy and commodities reporter points out, a NATO think tank has joined in to play up claims of Ukraine’s rare earth riches. The NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (based in Lithuania) claims that Ukraine has an abundant supply: “Ukraine emerges as a key potential supplier of rare earth metals such as titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel.” As was the case for the list published by Ukraine, none of these is among the rare earths. As mentioned above, the apatite deposits do not have commercially viable concentrations of rare earths.
The U.S. will be waiting a long time for Kyiv to pay the $500 billion Trump is demanding, if that payment is based on a much-touted resource that Ukraine does not even possess!
