Ukraine's parliament to ratify minerals deal with US next week: Lawmakers

Ukraine's parliament is planning next week to ratify a long-awaited minerals deal between Kyiv and Washington, lawmakers said on Friday.

“An extraordinary session of the Verkhovna Rada is planned to be convened on May 8 and the minerals agreement with the US will be ratified,” Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko wrote on Telegram.

The date planned for the deal's ratification was confirmed as well by Yaroslav Zheleznyak, another Ukrainian lawmaker, who also said the vote is planned for May 8.

Zheleznyak added on Telegram that Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal spoke to parliament during the day, during which he said that two of the three documents related to the minerals agreement would not require ratification.

“The preliminary agreement is that the (investment) fund will be registered in the US, but the account will be in Ukraine and the replenishment will be in (Ukrainian) hryvnia,” Zheleznyak quoted Shmyhal as saying when asked whether the jurisdiction of registration for the fund will be in the US state of Delaware.

He also said the Ukrainian premier conveyed the duration of the minerals agreement as indefinite, but that both sides can raise the issue of terminating the deal after 10 years.

On Wednesday, Ukraine and the US signed a long-awaited minerals deal after months of tense negotiations, as well as a heated Oval Office exchange this February.

The agreement stipulates the establishment of a joint investment fund for Ukraine's reconstruction, and will be financed, in part, by revenues gained from the extraction of natural resources following the deal's signing.