A Ukrainian drone attack has killed at least seven people in Kherson and a Russian drone attacks on Odesa left two people sead, authorities said, hours after the United States and Ukraine signed a controversial minerals deal.
The attack in the partially occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine on Thursday, which struck a market in the town of Oleshky, killed seven and wounded more than 20 people, according to the Moscow-installed Vladimir Saldo.
The Ukrainian military confirmed an attack in Kherson, but said it targeted Russian troops. It said the attack only killed military personnel.
In Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa, two people were killed and 15 others were injured, emergency services said.
Late on Thursday, at least 14 people were wounded after a Russian attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.
Writing on the Telegram messaging app, Fedorov clarified earlier casualty figures, saying a report that one person was killed had proved to be untrue.
Minerals deal
The attacks come after Ukraine and the US signed a deal granting the US priority access to Ukraine’s critical minerals as a means of deterring future Russian aggression. However, it stops short of offering specific security guarantees, and questions remain about accessing minerals in areas under Russian control.
Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said the deal “marks an important milestone in Ukraine–US strategic partnership aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s economy and security”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the deal as an equal and fair agreement that opens the way for the modernisation of industries in Ukraine.
Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said, “The overall thinking is that if the US buys into Ukraine economically, they’ll buy into Ukrainian security.”
First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said parliament would aim to approve the agreement within weeks.
“We want to ratify it as soon as possible. So we plan to do it within the coming weeks,” Svyrydenko told an online briefing.
Ukraine managed to obtain a series of last-minute concessions on the deal, which will see the establishment of a so-called Reconstruction Investment Fund, with Ukraine no longer forced to repay billions in previous US aid and retaining “full control over its subsoil, infrastructure and natural resources”, according to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
Significantly, the US Treasury statement on the deal had referred to Russia’s “full-scale invasion” of Ukraine, indicating a shift from Washington’s apparent tilt away from the country in favour of Russia. However, the draft does not provide the concrete security guarantees Ukraine was seeking, according to the Reuters news agency, which saw a copy.
Questions remain about how the US will tap resources located on the territory now controlled by Russian forces. About 40 percent of Ukraine’s metal resources are now under Russian occupation, according to estimates by Ukrainian think tanks We Build Ukraine and the National Institute of Strategic Studies, citing data up to the first half of 2024.
Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko told Al Jazeera that the deal was “a step in a positive direction” in terms of cooperation with the US.
Asked whether Ukraine was relinquishing control over its economic future by giving the US rights to its lucrative minerals, Goncharenko said: “I don’t see these risks, but I will be very cautious and will watch closely … the document before voting for it in Parliament”.
‘Diplomatic win’
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, mocked the deal on Thursday. “Trump has broken the Kyiv regime to the point where they will have to pay for US aid with mineral resources,” he said.
“Now they [Ukrainians] will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country,” he said.
Goncharenko told Al Jazeera that Medvedev’s statement represented “more and more lies from Russia”.
“It’s clearly said that … there is no debt for Ukraine, so we are not owing something to the United States for the moment,” he said, insisting that the deal regarded “new packages”. “If the United States sends us more weapons, then it will be part of this deal, so then we will return this money.”
Speaking to US network NewsNation on Wednesday, Trump had said that the deal would ensure the US didn’t look “foolish” as it would get a return on its investment in the country. Asked whether the deal would “inhibit” Putin, Trump said, “Well, it could.”
Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia Programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Al Jazeera that the deal was a “diplomatic win” for Ukraine amid Trump’s efforts to mediate a peace deal, which recently saw him threaten to walk out if a deal is not done soon, expressing fears that Putin was “just tapping me along”.
“What it will probably ensure or certainly [what] Kyiv hopes it will ensure is that, if the present round of peace negotiations fails and Trump, as threatened, walks away, he will blame Russia, not Ukraine,” said Lieven.
Overall, he added, it also meant the US would “feel it has a stake in Ukraine and therefore will not simply forget about Ukraine”. “And although that’s not a security guarantee, it certainly ought to be a deterrent to future Russian aggression,” he said.
Questioned on whether the US could be seen as a reliable mediator, Andrey Baklanov, of the Association of Russian Diplomats, told Al Jazeera that Russia was “cautious”.
During Trump’s first 100 days in power, marked on Wednesday, he said there had been “no tangible results” in terms of improving relations with Russia. As for the minerals deal, he said the agreement was not “timely” since “the destiny of what we call now Ukraine is quite weak”.
Goncharenko urged the US to apply more pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin to reach a ceasefire deal. “It’s time for President Trump to use not a carrot, but a stick,” he said.
“Russia is afraid of two countries in the world, China and the United States,” he said. “The United States is the country … [that] can leverage Putin, [that] can put pressure on him – and a lot of pressure.”
Putin has announced a three-day ceasefire for May 8-10, when Russia will hold celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, a key holiday on the Russian calendar.
However, Kyiv has been holding out for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire for at least 30 days. Putin has said many issues need to be clarified before that can happen.
