If Ukraine needs a wake-up call regarding how much agency it truly has, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s humiliating decision to sign the rare minerals deal, which would see America and Ukraine jointly extract valuable raw materials such as lithium and titanium, will do the trick. It’s hard to get more symbolic than watching the head of a client state get lambasted in the Oval Office, having the United States cut off sharing intelligence with his military, then shambling back over to his overseer to pay up.
There are, however, two underreported facets to this shameful episode that can help us understand the nature of both Washington and Ukraine. We can witness, in real time, the masks coming off of Washington’s foreign policy complex; we can also see why this particular betrayal is so traumatic and painful given Ukraine’s tragic history.
We can witness, in real time, the masks coming off of Washington’s foreign policy complex.
The refreshing thing about President Donald Trump is that he speaks the quiet part out loud. Politicians and think tankers who comprise Washington’s sprawling foreign policy establishment — “the Blob,” as it was called by Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes — love warbling about Ukraine’s battling on the front lines of freedom and Kyiv’s being our cherished partner, brimming with agency and sovereignty.
Trump doesn’t warble. Trump, who loves harping on Europe’s needing to pay for its own security, has made it clear that freedom ain’t free: If Ukraine wants the weapons it needs to hold Russia at bay, it better cough up its minerals.
The thing is, when it comes to looting Ukraine, the Blob is little different from Trump. Foreign policy insiders’ lofty concerns about Kyiv’s agency evaporate in the face of economic “opportunities.”
“Putin had two goals in invading Ukraine: robbing its territory, and robbing its sovereignty by preventing them from joining NATO,” thundered Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., on Feb. 16.
But just one day prior, Sen. Coons was striking a markedly different tone about Ukraine’s minerals.
“If this is an investment opportunity where American companies and other companies from Europe would be involved in mining and processing, so that we can be independent of Chinese sources of these strategic minerals, and if his helps deepen and strengthen our partnership to help ensure the security of Ukraine going forward … that would be a positive thing,” he told CNBC.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s robbing Ukraine is a horrific violation of sovereignty; the United States’ doing so is a positive. Let freedom ring.
Or take Peter Dickinson — the editor of a Ukraine-centric blog for the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based foreign policy think tank that receives funding from arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, the kingdom of Bahrain, the Charles Koch Foundation and the U.S. Energy Department, among other luminaries. “We hear lots of talk about geopolitics and what Putin wants, but we should not underestimate the agency of the Ukrainian people or their desire for a democratic European future,” Dickinson told Bloomberg in 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s robbing Ukraine is a horrific violation of sovereignty; the United States’ doing so is a positive. Let freedom ring.
Later that year, the X handle of Business Ukraine Mag (a publication edited and published by Dickinson) took Elon Musk to the woodshed, posting, “Elon Musk seems unaware that Ukrainian sovereignty is not up for discussion.” Things appear to have changed last month, however, when Dickinson was quoted in a Politico article with the amazing headline “Ukraine reels in Trump with mineral riches.” (It could have also read: “Bully’s victim reels in bully with lunch money.”)
Dickinson acknowledged that for Kyiv, it “would mean a lot less mineral wealth in future” before adding, “But I doubt anyone is very concerned about that.” He continued, “Compared to the alternative of the country being wiped off the map entirely, it looks like a very good deal indeed! Most Ukrainians certainly seem to view it as perhaps distasteful but ultimately a no-brainer.”
The hypocrisy of Ukraine’s purported Washington advocates only deepens given the role its territorial resources play in Ukraine’s identity — and the danger that could lurk for Zelenskyy, of all people, if he is strong-armed into conceding them.
It’s hard to overstate the role land plays in the Ukrainian psyche. One modern interpretation of the country’s blue-over-yellow flag is that it represents blue skies over the golden wheat fields of Ukraine. Even the months of the year are named after the agricultural cycle — August is Sickle-time, for the harvest; November is Leaf-fall, for autumn. This love of their land — and fear of losing it — was watered with blood after Holodomor: the 1932-1933 manmade famine, courtesy of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, after he ordered the grain seized from Ukraine. The famine, which many (including me) consider a genocide, saw almost 4 million Ukrainians perish of hunger. Every morning, dead bodies littered the streets as people collapsed where they walked. Cannibalism was commonplace. Stalin sold the stolen wheat to industrialize the Soviet Union, including its military, which was used to keep Kyiv under Moscow’s power for the next 50-plus years; Ukraine’s grain helped forge Ukraine’s chains. Ultranationalist elements of Ukraine seized on Holodomor to create the antisemitic lie that the famine was orchestrated by Jews. Starting with World War II, that deadly trope was used to “justify” Ukrainian participation in the Holocaust, a “you killed us, we killed you” narrative that persists on the Ukrainian far right to this day. You can see it in graffiti scrawled on a Jewish social services center in the western city of Uzhhorod in 2017: “We remember. 1932-1933. We’ll take revenge.” The years referred to the famine; the graffiti appeared on the day Ukraine commemorates Holodomor victims. The image of Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s first Jewish president, signing away his country’s rare minerals couldn’t be more perfect for Ukraine’s far right. He might as well be maniacally rubbing his hands together while being handed a bag with dollar signs. Considering Kyiv is teetering on losing the war, which could unleash various nightmare scenarios, that image is not just disgusting but dangerous. Jews haven’t done well when they have been blamed for wars. The kicker to the rare minerals deal is that much of the resources are in Ukraine’s east, either in Russia-controlled territory or in a no-man’s-land covered with land mines. Realistically, Zelenskyy has as much ability to give them away as I do. The only bankable outcome of this sordid mess is just a further painful reminder of how screwed Ukraine is.
Lev Golinkin
Lev Golinkin writes about refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir "A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka." 
