Ivan Us

Ukrainian foreign-policy analyst, chief consultant at the Centre for Foreign Policy at the National Institute for Strategic Studies (NISS) — the Ukrainian government’s principal strategic think tank.

Us specialises in Ukraine’s external relations and the geopolitics of the war with Russia. On the Sinica panel he supplied the fullest first-hand account of how the US–Ukraine minerals deal was conceived and negotiated from Kyiv’s side, tracing it from a near-unknown topic in October 2024 to a signed agreement on 1 May 2025.

Core positions

• The minerals deal is best understood as Ukrainian statecraft: by giving the US a stake in Ukraine’s resources, Kyiv aimed to make Washington a ‘shareholder of victory’ whose own interests would argue for continued support.
• The deal is about future projects, not existing ones — Ukraine has explored only around 3,500 of some 20,000 deposits, and any value depends first on winning the war and regaining occupied territory in the Donbas and Crimea.
• Over-dependence on Russian supply (titanium, gas) has blunted other states’ willingness to sanction Moscow; diversification away from Russia is both an economic and a strategic imperative.

In the wiki

• Ivan Us, Jim Mullinax, Grzegorz Stec, and Xu Qinduo on the Ukraine-US Minerals Deal, Critical Minerals, and Rebuilding Ukraine — Kyiv’s account of the deal’s origins, the February 2025 Oval Office clash, and the reconstruction stakes