Critical Minerals and Ukraine: How to Turn the Strategic Shortfall in the US and EU into a Competitive Advantage
The global market for critical raw materials (CRM) has definitively become a flashpoint in geopolitical relations. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a $12 billion strategic critical-minerals stockpile aimed at reducing dependence on China is not just another policy initiative. Control over supply chains is no longer merely an economic issue — it has become a matter of national security. Washington is signaling clearly: the era of carefree reliance on imports from China is over. In this new global security architecture, Ukraine has every opportunity to emerge as a new resilience hub for the West.
From Declarations of Intent to Real Capital
The United States views Ukraine as one of the potential suppliers of critical raw materials. Ukraine and the US have already signed an agreement establishing a joint Reconstruction Investment Fund that will invest in mineral extraction — including critical minerals — as well as related infrastructure and processing, exclusively within Ukraine.
A key instrument in this framework is the American-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund (AURIF), created on a parity governance basis between the Government of Ukraine and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The establishment of the fund marked the first concrete step in implementing the “minerals agreement,” enabling de-risking mechanisms, war-risk insurance, and concessional financing for deep-processing projects.
This mechanism has already moved into an active phase: the first round of investment proposal selection has been completed, with projects focused on the extraction and processing of critical minerals occupying a central position.
In January 2026, the Government of Ukraine officially selected the winner of a tender to develop the large Dobra lithium deposit (Kirovohrad region). The winner, Dobra Lithium Holdings JV, LLC, includes international investment firm TechMet and US-based The Rock Holdings among its shareholders. When major global investors launch mining projects in Ukraine, it sends a clear signal — Ukraine is integrating into US supply chains in practice, not just in rhetoric.
Cooperation with Ukraine Enables the US to Achieve Three Fundamental Objectives
1. Reducing China’s resource leverage.
The US remains critically dependent on China for strategic metals (80–100% for certain materials). Ukraine has the capacity to substitute Chinese imports for key materials on the US critical minerals list, including titanium, zirconium, and hafnium.
2. Establishing full-cycle extraction and processing in a “friend-shoring” environment.
The US seeks to relocate processing capacity from China to trusted partners. Ukraine offers not only raw materials but integrated clusters where extraction and deep processing are combined into a single value chain.
3. Aligning definitions of critical materials.
This creates an opportunity to ensure long-term supply resilience for lithium and graphite used in battery production and energy storage systems.
The European Dimension and Strategic Autonomy
While the US prepares financial interventions, the European Union is building the regulatory foundation. Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 introduces a mechanism for establishing strategic stockpiles. Member states must designate responsible entities to build reserves calculated on the basis of average daily imports. This framework ensures a secure level of supply in the event of disruptions.
We are witnessing the emergence of a new geo-economic reality. The January 2026 summit of Italy and Germany in Rome formally declared a course toward European strategic autonomy. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Action Plan explicitly identifies reducing dependence on China as a matter of industrial survival. This creates a window of opportunity for Ukrainian projects to secure the status of “EU Strategic Projects.”
Ukraine’s Strategic Card in the New Global Game
Ukraine’s reserves of critical minerals may well be the strategic “card” President Trump alludes to in discussions about global economic leverage. The direct US interest in Ukraine is the creation of a “safe harbor” for the extraction and processing of critical raw materials.
These resources can form the foundation of a major strategic partnership in which Ukraine acts as an equal partner. Attracting US investment into the critical minerals sector should become a key driver of Ukraine’s industrial policy — reviving existing capacities, building new production facilities, creating thousands of jobs, and accelerating the transition to a high-tech economy.
This is Ukraine’s path toward genuine economic agency: ensuring that its mineral resources contribute both to shared defense capabilities with partners and to the development of new industrial strength within the country.
A central pillar of this strategy must be the creation of resource clusters. Ukraine must move beyond the outdated “ore export” model toward integrated industrial complexes where the entire value chain — from extraction and beneficiation to the production of metals, oxides, and finished components — is consolidated within unified technological ecosystems.
For Ukraine’s domestic economy, this means a structural shift in GDP composition: instead of exporting low-value raw materials, the country captures value-added domestically. The development of such clusters will stimulate adjacent industries — from machinery manufacturing and energy to advanced IT services — creating thousands of high-skilled jobs, expanding local tax bases, and generating new demand for Ukrainian science and innovation.
In this way, Ukraine can transform from a raw-material supplier into a high-potential technological hub integrated into the internal security markets of both the United States and the European Union.