An expected long -term agreement, but for what effect? The United States and Ukraine signed an agreement on Wednesday, April 30, an agreement on the exploitation of Mining Resources of Ukraine, a document that has been in negotiations for weeks. If Volodymyr Zelensky praised a “truly equitable” text, the text remains a commercial agreement that leaves many questions about the continuation of the war in Ukraine.
For Claude Blanchemaison, former French ambassador to Russia and the United States, this agreement is a “true success of Volodymyr Zelensky.” First, because “the signed agreement (Wednesday) in Washington acknowledges that Zelensky is the legitimate president of Ukraine, while Donald Trump had a small doubt before, and also recognizes that Russia is the aggressor”, which signs a deep change in the terminology of the US administration who now speaks of “large -scale invasion” of Ukraña by Russia.
But the agreement also marks a turning point in terms of image, according to the former ambassador. “We are at a key moment. Volodymyr Zelensky found the media in a month to reverse the situation in his favor, in any case to change Donald Trump’s opinion in front of him,” he explains to BFMTV.
“A month ago, Volodymyr Zelensky was mistreated in the Oval Office of the White House and today this agreement is signed,” he said.
“We pass from the image of Zelensky, who is humiliated to Washington in Zelensky to the Vatican who serenely talks with Donald Trump,” abounds the former officer and war columnist Guillaume Ancel in BFMTV.
A “commercial agreement” and not from truce
More interesting for kyiv than in its first version, this text plans to give access to US companies to the extraction of minerals, oil and gas in Ukraine and the creation of a common investment fund between the two countries for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
For Oxana Melnichuk, Ukrainian political scientist and director of the “Unis for Ukraine” association, one of the great positive points of this agreement is that “Ukraine maintains its property, that is to say that it is not the Americans who will have properties on Ukrainian resources (…) and it is the Ukrainian state that will give the Americans.”
However, Guillaume Ancel calls not to shout the victory too early. “We are not talking about a high fire agreement, we are talking about a commercial agreement,” he recalls. This also implies that the document does not provide a safety guarantee for kyiv, a point where the Ukrainian President had insisted, enough to question the continuation of the conflict.
“American long -term interest in Ukraine”
While maintaining a “reserved optimism,” Oxana Melnichuk believes that this commercial agreement could still have positive consequences for war in Ukraine.
“The Americans will now defend the Ukrainian soil because they are future resources,” he wants to believe.
“Trump has changed his attitude,” he said, emphasizing that now the US president no longer evokes a Ukrainian debt contracted with the United States, “he speaks of potential income thanks to investments in Ukraine and Ukraine already considered the partner (financial).”
Robert B. Murrett, Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at the University of Syracuse in the United States, also supports, with the French agency to Presse, that this agreement is necessarily “positive, in the sense that the United States gives long -term interest in Ukraine.”
New military aid?
This agreement may also have begun a resurgence of US military aid in Ukraine. In fact, according to diplomatic sources in the kyiv Post, also transmitted by Times and The Guardian, the Trump administration announced to the United States Congress that it was intended to give a new light to a new over $ 50 million in military equipment to Ukraine.
If this help is not official for the moment, it would be, if confirmed, of the first envelope for kyiv to be validated by the new president, when in recent months, US deliveries came from agreements signed by former American head of state Joe Biden, and while Donald Trump had suspended all aid to kyiv. Which potentially relieves the short -term future of Ukraine.
At the same time, the fight continues on the ground, despite the agreement. Fourteen people were injured on Thursday night in a Russian attack against Zaporijjia, nine of which were hospitalized, according to Ivan Fedorov, governor of this region. A few hours before, two people had been killed in a drone attack in a residential area in Odessa.
The Russian answer in suspense
In addition, the Russian question is still unanswered. What answer will Moscow make to this agreement, when Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had gathered in recent months?
“Vladimir Putin is in difficulty, because Vladimir Putin does not want to break with Trump, wants to keep his good thanks,” Judge Claude Blancaison, former ambassador of France in Russia and the United States.
At the moment, the Russian president has not reacted, when he proposed a simple unilateral fire from May 8 to 10 for the commemorations of the Russian victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. Dimitri Medvedev, former head of state of Russia today vice president of the Security Council of Russia, said that the agreement was not a victory for Ukraine did not recognize a failure of his country.
“Donald Trump has broken the kyiv regime to the point that the latter will have to pay US help with mineral resources,” he said on Telegram, “says Reuters.” From now on, they (Ukrainians) will have to pay military supplies with the national wealth of an endangered country, “he said.
For the General of the Air Force, Patrick Dugartre, Russia cannot remain unrealized. “The ball is in the Putin camp, it will have to do something because otherwise I would lose a lot,” he judges in BFMTV.
Source: BFM TV
