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KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine wants to collaborate with partner countries on postwar projects worth billions of dollars not just in mining rare earth elements, but also in energy and construction sectors to help rebuild the country, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Wednesday.
Sybiha responded to comments by President Donald Trump who said Monday that he wanted to gain access to Ukraine’s valuable rare earth materials as a condition for continuing support for its war against Russia.
Ukrainian officials have said Russia wants to get its hands on Ukraine’s vast natural resources.
Kyiv intends to offer “guarantees of the presence of major businesses in Ukraine and the vested interests of our closest allies — the United States — in developing these (rare earth) deposits and ensuring their protection,” the foreign minister said.
But cooperation should not be limited to rare earth materials, Sybiha said in a news conference alongside visiting UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
Ukraine has “huge potential” to become a guarantor of energy security in Europe by buying liquefied natural gas from the United States and storing it in its massive underground tanks for later distribution, he said.
Sybiha also said there was “joint interest” from Ukrainian and American businesses in the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine, estimated to cost more than $400 billion. “This will be one of the largest projects of this century and, accordingly, one of the largest opportunities for our allies.”
Meanwhile, Zelensky said in an interview broadcast Tuesday night that the war has killed 45,100 Ukrainian troops. The fighting also has injured close to 390,000 troops, he told Piers Morgan Uncensored on YouTube.
On Dec. 8, he said Ukraine had lost some 43,000 soldiers on the battlefield and 370,000 wounded.
Russia hasn’t given its number of killed since September 2022, seven months after its all-out invasion.
If the US stops sending vital military aid, that could also jeopardize European support, Zelensky said in the interview. “Without a doubt, we cannot do without this kind of (Western) support,” he said.
Zelensky said Wednesday that the United States must be part of any Western troop deployment to safeguard a peace deal with Russia and shield against another invasion. Sending only European troops would not be enough, he said.
“Because this is not just a matter of numbers, it is about sharing responsibility and ensuring security guarantees. This cannot be done without the United States of America,” he said at a news conference with Lammy.
Ukrainian forces are slowly losing ground, especially in eastern areas, where they are being pushed backward by their bigger foe.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Wednesday that Russian troops had captured the villages of Baranivka in the eastern Donetsk region and Novomlynsk in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Baranivka’s capture is part of Russia’s effort to envelop Pokrovsk, a key road and rail hub whose loss would compromise a wider area of defense, while the seizure of Novomlynsk is part of Russia’s onslaught toward Kupiansk, another important train junction.
Ukraine keeps hitting the Russian military’s rear areas and supply lines in an effort to disrupt the creeping advance.
Ukraine’s Army General staff claimed Wednesday that Ukrainian forces struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region of Russia overnight, setting it on fire.
According to the General Staff, the oil refinery and petroleum product manufacturing plant supplies gasoline and diesel to the Russian army.
The governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, claimed that fragments of a downed Ukrainian drone hit an oil tank at an oil depot in the village of Novominskaya early Wednesday, sparking a fire.
The fire was put out shortly after and there were no injuries, emergency officials said.

CONGO: The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Wednesday called for the presentation of information and evidence regarding atrocities committed in eastern Congo, where at least 2,900 people were killed in violence since the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel movement seized the eastern city of Goma last week.

“The Office will continue to investigate alleged crimes committed by any person, irrespective of affiliation or nationality and will not be limited to particular individuals, parties or members of specific groups,” the prosecutor's offfice said in a statement.

As Goma counted its dead, Vivian van de Perre, deputy chief of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), gave an updated toll from the battle for the city.

“So far, 2,000 bodies have been collected from the Goma streets in recent days, and 900 bodies remain in the morgues of the Goma hospitals,” she told a video news conference, saying the toll could still rise.

ICC prosecutors said in a statement they were “closely following” events in the eastern DRC, “including the grave escalation of violence over the past weeks.”

Despite announcing a unilateral ceasefire on Monday, the rebels mounted a fresh offensive gained ground in eastern Congo on Wednesday despite the unilateral ceasefire they declared earlier this week, taking control of a town 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Bukavu, civil society officials and residents told The Associated Press.

Citing pleas for the safe passage of aid and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, the M23 announced the ceasefire, but Congo’s government has described the ceasefire as “false communication,” and the United Nations has noted reports of heavy fighting with Congolese forces in the mineral-rich region.

The new offensive came days before the Rwandan and Congolese presidents are due to attend a crisis summit.

Intense clashes broke out at dawn on Wednesday as M23 fighters and Rwandan forces seized the mining town of Nyabibwe, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Bukavu and 70 kilometers from the province’s airport, security and humanitarian sources told AFP.

The M23 had said in declaring the ceasefire that it had “no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities.”
“This is proof that the unilateral ceasefire that has been declared was, as usual, a ploy,” Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told AFP.
In more than three years of fighting between the Rwanda-backed group and the Congolese army, half a dozen ceasefires and truces have been declared, before being unceremoniously broken.
Local and military sources said in recent days that all sides were reinforcing troops and equipment in the region.
Last week’s capture of Goma was a major escalation in the mineral-rich region, scarred by relentless conflict involving dozens of armed groups over three decades.

“We want peace”
In Bukavu, a city of one million people that residents fear will become the next battleground, a crowd gathered for an ecumenical prayer service for peace, organized by local women.
“We are tired of the non-stop wars. We want peace,” one attendee, Jacqueline Ngengele, told AFP.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame are due to attend a joint summit of the eight-country East African Community and 16-member Southern African Development Community in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Saturday.
A day earlier, the UN Human Rights Council will convene a special session on the crisis, at Kinshasa’s request.
Diplomatic sources say the M23’s advance in the east of the vast central African nation could weaken Tshisekedi, who won a second term in December 2023.
Fears the violence could spark a wider conflict have galvanized regional bodies, mediators such as Angola and Kenya, as well as the United Nations, European Union and other countries in diplomatic efforts for a peaceful resolution.
But the DRC’s top diplomat accused the international community of being all talk and no action on the conflict.
“We see a lot of declarations but we don’t see actions,” Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told journalists in Brussels.
Several neighboring countries have already said they are bolstering their defenses, wary of the crisis spilling over.
A UN expert report said last year that Rwanda had up to 4,000 troops in the DRC, seeking to profit from its vast mineral wealth, and that Kigali has “de facto” control over the M23.
The eastern DRC has deposits of coltan, a metallic ore that is vital in making phones and laptops, as well as gold and other minerals.
Rwanda has never explicitly admitted to military involvement in support of the M23 and alleges that the DRC supports and shelters the FDLR, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.