Kremlin talks up mineral trade opportunities with US

Vladimir Putin said Russia was ready to develop reserves in Russia and its ‘new territories’ — areas it has occupied in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: AFP

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it sees potential for co-operation with the United States on developing Russia’s large reserves of strategically important rare and rare earth minerals.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday evening in a televised interview said that Russia is a world leader in terms of reserves and “needs to do more” with them.

He said Russia is ready to work with “foreign partners including Americans” to develop such reserves in Russia and its “new territories”, referring to areas it has occupied in Ukraine through its military offensive.

“Quite broad prospects are opening up here,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists Tuesday, adding: “the Americans need rare earth minerals. We have a lot of them.”

Critical minerals including rare earth elements are increasingly important given their use in clean energy technologies like batteries for electric cars.

US President Donald Trump is pushing for Ukraine to sign a deal giving it privileged access to its reserves of valuable minerals such as titanium and lithium.

But Russia has also seized on the topic with Putin holding a meeting with his cabinet Monday evening to discuss developing the sector.

Russia has occupied territory in east and south Ukraine with large deposits of lithium and other minerals.

The Kremlin spokesman said that Russia was ready for such deal “when the moment of political will comes for this”.

But Peskov cautioned that Russia still needs time to rebuild its relations with the United States, which has imposed heavy sanctions on its economy over the Ukraine conflict.

“In order to say we trust the Americans, we will have to take a serious journey … we will have to take very many small steps towards each other, which will facilitate restoration of trust,” he said.

“A lot was damaged. This cannot be restored overnight.”

AFP