Yurlov reveals chaotic rotation of US negotiators on minerals deal

Chaos in the negotiation process

Former official at the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Mykola Yurlov, described the difficulties that arose during the preparation of the minerals agreement with the United States. According to him, the American side lacked a clear vision of future agreements, and the composition of their negotiating delegation changed five times.

Constant rotation of US representatives

Yurlov noted that initially, negotiations were led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He was followed by Vice President JD Vance, then US Special Envoy Keith Kellogg, and later by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Eventually, Bessent returned to the negotiations.

This dynamic forced the Ukrainian side to effectively restart the discussion from scratch for several weeks. Even after the text of the agreement had been agreed upon and all amendments submitted, a new negotiator could reject previous arrangements and put forward entirely different demands.

“Forget everything you agreed on”

“It reached absolute absurdity: when we had just agreed on one text, sent all amendments regarding it, and in the morning we received a call from a different negotiator who said: ‘Forget everything you agreed on with my predecessor. Now I demand that you acknowledge a debt of 500 billion dollars’,” Yurlov emphasised.

The former official added that the constant change of negotiators and their demands created uncertainty regarding the final terms and complicated the preparation of the agreement between Ukraine and the United States.