Trump hails minerals agreement ‘an incredible deal’ for Ukraine

Yes, it's a counter to China, but you've still got the problem of where the minerals are going to be processed and how long it's going to take,

said Julian Kettle, Vice Chair Metals and Mining at natural resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie

The reality is that most lithium deposits in Ukraine were identified in the Soviet era and we haven't had any real updates or exploration for many years,

said Federico Gay, analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI), a London-based specialist information provider for the supply chain of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles

Ukraine hasn't been mapped in 30 years. There's so much more to be done before we get to a phase of advanced exploration in Ukraine,

said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American think tank

Before the war broke out, I had a lot of commercial negotiations with ... investors who were interested in the project,

Alyoshin told Reuters

Even if everything stacks up, it would take a minimum of eight years for the Polokhivske deposit to be developed to the stage where it is producing usable lithium,

he said

I have a lot of respect for him.”

Just days after calling Ukraine’s president a dictator, Trump softened his tone ahead of the meeting, telling reporters Thursday

Our enterprise is now very unstable, and this leads to a very high cost of our products,

Holik said

It is very difficult to talk about the actual value of these deposits,

Bariatska said

Michael Waltznational security adviser

It’s been damaged, it is not at its current capacity, if restored it would account for America’s entire imports of aluminum for an entire year,

Waltz said

Now we don’t know what and how our work will go on even tomorrow

said Dmytro Holik, director of mining and concentrating plant at Ukrainian conglomerate Group DF

Every day we see how Ukraine’s energy system is being destroyed. Every day, entire regions are cut off in an emergency,

he added, a reference to the waves of drones and missiles Russia pounds Ukrainian homes and energy infrastructure with each night

When you talk about economic development, we’re going to have a lot of people over there,

he said