President: Ukraine selects law firm to support subsoil agreement with U.S.

The head of state said this at a press conference, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. 

“First of all, the teams are working on today's agreement. As I said, we are dealing with the selection of a law firm, in principle, we have chosen one. There are three key companies that have agreed to represent Ukraine and are competent. We have reached an agreement with one of the three companies, and we are now negotiating the terms,” Zelensky said.

He noted that early next week there will be “a big meeting with our team, where I will be presented with all the points that satisfy us or that will reflect fairness in the agreement, in our opinion, as we see it.”

“The team will brief me on the agreement, on the most important things,” Zelensky said.

He emphasized that Ukraine sees only partnership steps in the agreement with the United States on minerals.

After the agreement is presented to the President, he said, preparations will begin for a technical team to be sent to the United States to conduct a dialogue with American partners.

“For now, we are counting on our technical team, I am not going to go [to the United States] yet,” Zelensky added.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Presidential Administration said that the agreement between Ukraine and the United States on rare earth metals is already being worked out by the Ukrainian side. It should not contradict the legislation and interests of Ukraine. At the same time, the document does not mention security guarantees from the partners.

The delegations of Ukraine and the United States planned to sign a bilateral agreement on establishing the rules and conditions of the investment fund for reconstruction on February 28. It was supposed to be a framework document, and the countries were to work on a treaty establishing the Reconstruction Investment Fund, which would require ratification by the Verkhovna Rada. However, the agreement was not signed.