
© Facebook / Yulia Svyrydenko
Separate provisions outline Kiev's "indefinite obligations" and bypass parliamentary ratification, Irina Gerashchenko has claimed
The US-Ukraine minerals agreement announced this week "hides" details of Kiev's "indefinite obligations" to Washington, a Ukrainian lawmaker has claimed.In a Facebook post on Friday, Irina Gerashchenko, a member of European Solidarity party said
the deal includes two "secret," supplementary documents that will not be subject to parliamentary ratification.
The minerals deal reportedly grants the US preferential access to Ukrainian mining projects in exchange for assistance with an investment fund to support the country's reconstruction. Initially portrayed by Washington as repayment forbears of military support - estimated at $350 billion by President Donald Trump - the final text, published on Thursday by the Ukrainian government, states that only future aid will count toward US contributions to the fund.
Gerashchenko claimed however that instead of one agreement, the US and Ukraine signed three.
"The Zelensky government has not provided deputies and society with all the agreements signed in the US, which, as it turned out, are three, not one," she wrote.
"Meanwhile, they want to ratify only one framework document in the Verkhovna Rada. Others are labeled 'implementation documents,' despite the fact that it is in these two secret agreements that all the technical details of indefinite Ukrainian obligations are hidden."Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal "avoided" commenting on the two documents and the lack of security
guarantees in the published agreement - reportedly a key point of contention during negotiations - Gerashchenko told the country's parliament on Friday.
The claim has raised questions among Ukrainian lawmakers and the public on the actual scope of the agreement. MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak claimed on Telegram that, when pressed, Shmigal acknowledged the two additional documents but downplayed them as "technical" and exempt from ratification. The texts "must be signed after the ratification" of the main agreement, Shmigal claimed, noting that lawmakers would see them when the Ukrainian negotiating team returns from the US next week.
Western media reports have also noted the existence of additional documents and claimed that a last-minute dispute arose when Washington demanded Kiev sign all three.
Ukrainian officials reportedly argued they could not sign the annexes until the main agreement was ratified in Parliament. Later reports suggested all three documents were ultimately signed.Further details about the contents of the supplementary documents have not been publicly released, and the Ukrainian government has not issued an official statement addressing their existence or content.
Comment:
It was during the first Trump presidency that permanent US bases were set up in Poland:
What was unique about the US presence in Poland was that in case of violations of Polish law by US personnel, the offenders would be judged by US law and not local Polish laws. Suppose a drunk driver kills some Polish citizen, no problem sent the troublemaker back to the US with the next plane, and, for all we know, forget about it.
Later during the Biden presidency bilateral agreements have been concluded with other European NATO members, including for instance the new NATO countries Sweden and Finland. The template has been to conclude agreements first, again with the clause that US law would rule over American personnel rather than local laws, and then leave it to the Governments to to make changes to their legal framework and have the agreements passed through their democratically elected parliaments to insure that they could be implemented as initially signed. From this perspective, there is nothing much new in what the Trump administration is now doing in Ukraine. The formular is: make a deal and leave the vassal to sort out the details.
Comment:
It was during the first Trump presidency that permanent US bases were set up in Poland:
Later during the Biden presidency bilateral agreements have been concluded with other European NATO members, including for instance the new NATO countries Sweden and Finland. The template has been to conclude agreements first, again with the clause that US law would rule over American personnel rather than local laws, and then leave it to the Governments to to make changes to their legal framework and have the agreements passed through their democratically elected parliaments to insure that they could be implemented as initially signed. From this perspective, there is nothing much new in what the Trump administration is now doing in Ukraine. The formular is: make a deal and leave the vassal to sort out the details.