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What the 25 February 2025 minerals announcement signalled
Summary
A look back at a day when Kyiv announced a minerals deal with Washington, after a UN vote that exposed divisions over the war.
What did Ukraine think it had secured on 25 February 2025? Justice Minister Olha Stefanishyna announced that day that Ukraine had reached a deal with the United States on mineral resources. The announcement came at the end of a few days in which the diplomatic ground around the war shifted visibly.
A vote that divided the room
On 24 February 2025, the UN General Assembly voted 93–18, with 65 abstentions, to pass a resolution condemning Russia's war against Ukraine. The 18 countries voting against included Russia, Belarus and North Korea. They also included Israel and the United States, a combination that made the result as notable for who opposed the text as for who supported it.
The vote followed protests held across Europe and Canada on 23 February 2025 to mark the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion.
Kyiv signals flexibility
On 23 February 2025, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was ready to resign from the presidency in exchange for NATO accession as part of a potential peace agreement. Set beside the minerals announcement two days later, it showed Kyiv offering both political and economic concessions as negotiations took shape.
Europe looks to its own defences
On 24 February 2025, Friedrich Merz, Germany's chancellor-in-waiting, declared the rapid re-militarisation of Germany and Europe an immediate priority. The aims he set out were to provide military support for Ukraine against Russia and to pursue European military independence from the United States and possibly NATO. For a Ukrainian government weighing a deal with Washington, that was a notable parallel track.
War continues on the ground
Fighting did not pause for diplomacy. Overnight into 24 February 2025, a Ukrainian drone attack destroyed the main crude distillation unit at the Ryazan Refinery in Russia, which suspended operations. Locals reported hearing at least five explosions.
Reading the day
Taken together, these reports show Kyiv on 25 February 2025 negotiating from a position of both need and initiative: it was reaching an agreement with a partner that had just voted against the UN text, while Europe's largest economy-in-waiting talked of standing more firmly on its own, and Ukrainian drones continued to hit targets inside Russia. The minerals deal was the day's headline, but its meaning depended on the wider bargaining of which it was a part.
