Krystyna Kazakova20:47, 03.10.25

The Prime Minister of Ukraine managed to achieve better conditions for the country during negotiations, and the agreement was signed with the United States.

Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, whom Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed prime minister in mid-July this year, seems ideally suited for the task, writes The New York Times .

Throughout her career, Svyridenko has worked in private companies or on economic issues in regional and national governments. The publication notes that as economy minister, she negotiated with the Trump administration a mineral extraction agreement that became the basis for new business relations between Kyiv and Washington.

The article suggests that perhaps the biggest test for Svyrydenko occurred this year, when Ukraine was negotiating the opening of its mineral resources to the United States. 

Svyrydenko led the Ukrainian side in the negotiations, which quickly became tense. According to the publication, Washington made demands that Ukrainian officials perceived as outright blackmail. In particular, the US requested half of the rights to extract minerals in Ukraine.

Also, as one former and one current Ukrainian official told the publication on condition of anonymity, in February of this year, during a video conference, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant shouted at Svirydenko that she had 6 minutes to agree to the deal, otherwise the negotiations would be terminated.

However, the current Prime Minister of Ukraine, as stated in the article, denied that her conversation with Bessent was tense, and the press secretary of the US Treasury Secretary did not respond to the publication’s requests for comment.

As noted, in the end, Svyrydenko managed to achieve better conditions for Ukraine and the agreement was signed between the countries. According to the head of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, they managed to establish “a working relationship with Secretary Bessent, based on trust.”

The publication adds that according to Matthew Murray, chairman of the advisory board of Ukrainian titanium company Velta, Ms. Svyridenko “has clearly become a very effective mediator in communicating with the Trump administration.”

Subsoil Agreement between Ukraine and the United States

UNIAN previously reported that Prime Minister Yulia Svirydenko said that the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) had announced its first contribution to the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund in the amount of $75 million. It is indicated that Ukraine will also allocate a similar amount. Thus, the total capital of the fund will reach $150 million. Svirydenko called this news an important step in the process of launching the full-fledged work of the Fund and added that operational work has begun.

We also wrote that Economy Minister Oleksiy Sobolev reported that a delegation from the United States had made its first visit to facilities that could become starter projects for the Investment Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine. Sobolev specified that they visited the Kirovohrad region to assess investment opportunities for mining and processing in the region. In particular, the American delegation inspected the Byrzulyvskyi GOK and the Likarivske deposit.

(C)UNIAN 2025