Geopolitics of Natural Resources and the Ukrainian Conflict
In conclusion, the case of Ukraine makes clear that the issue of the exploitation of rare metals is, in fact, of a geopolitical nature, backed by the real fear of the Collective West of losing global economic-political dominance. Consequently, to get exploitation of several critical natural/mineral resources, the Collective West is ready to fight Russia till the last Ukrainian (mobilized by force) soldier [...]
Geopolitics is an approach to politics that stresses the features imposed on foreign policy by geographical location, environment, and natural resources. Geopolitics as a discipline contributes to the emphasis on continuity in contemporary political realism. The focal idea of geopolitics is that those who control the Eurasian landmass (Heartland) dominate global politics. Regarding this idea, Ukraine has always been a significant part of Heartland. Therefore, many great powers have been fighting to impose their control over the territory of contemporary Ukraine (or part of it) from the Middle Ages up to today (for instance, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Sweden, Vikings, Ottoman Empire). Nevertheless, Ukraine up to 1923 (the creation of the USSR) was just a geographical notion but not a political-administrative subject.
The pre-2014 Ukraine was a country covering a huge territory of East Europe from the Carpathian Mt. in the west to the Donets River in the east being bounded by the Black Sea in the south. The neighbors were and still are Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Belarus, Russia, Moldova, and Romania. After the dissolution of the USSR after Cold War 1.0, an independent (Greater) Ukraine took necessary measures in order to as possible as reduce its economic dependence on Russia as well as on other ex-Soviet republics. For instance, such measures included an agreement to import the oil from Iran instead of from Russia. However, the exploitation of natural/mineral resources has been neglected while heavy industry, including iron and steel production, machinery, and transport production followed by aircraft, chemicals, and consumer goods, became an industrial priority. In essence, the food and textile industries are very important while grain is of crucial agricultural and export importance in the Ukrainian economy. However, in general, Ukrainian agriculture became very much damaged because of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl as the large cultivating area became contaminated.
Regarding politics, it is surely true that any Russophobic political regime in Kiev will continue to enjoy the U.S. financial, political, and military support no matter the results of the U.S. presidential elections this year in November. The question can be only of which intensity but not yes or no for the very reason that a political administration of the U.S. is overwhelmingly controlled by the Deep State that means at least concerning American foreign policy (especially regarding Israel) no matter from which out of two parties the President is or which party is having the majority in Congress (Republicans or Democrats). Such position in regard to both Russia and Ukraine can be explained by the need for the U.S. to support Ukraine for any price in the long term for at least clear geopolitical reasons as many years ago a Polish-American notorious Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that unquestionable fact is that without the territory of (Soviet) Ukraine, any form of Russia simply cannot be an empire or, in other words, if Ukraine became subordinated to the Russian crucial influence or annexed by Moscow, Russia will in such case become once again an empire.
However, another reason for the American Russophobic policy in Ukraine is of a more global nature as Washington wants to fight any newly emerged (or potential) new world order in international relations led by Russia or/and China (for instance, formed around the framework of the BRICS+ countries or so). In order words, for American policymakers, any division of interest zones from the global perspective will harm America’s dominant position (enjoyed after the end of the Cold War 1.0) in international politics as well as the economy for the very reason that it would reduce the global market for American products and financial investments. Therefore, such geopolitical, economic, and financial interests of the U.S. are driving American policy in Ukraine to arm and train Ukrainian military and paramilitary troops in order to win the war against Russia (which, in fact, according to many authors, a putschist pro-Western regime in Kiev started in 2014 during and after the Euro-Maidan Revolution). Officially, the U.S. Army is not involved in the conflict but in fact, Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for different interests and benefits of the American administration and companies. Obviously, Washington is waging a proxy war against Russia on the territory of (Soviet) Ukraine but not for the reason that the Russian Special Military Operation (since the end of February 2022) threatened any kind of American national security but oppositely as the U.S. directly threatened the security of the Russian Federation, the existence of the Russian culture and above all of ethnic Russians in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine (including Crimea too). For the American administration, it is obvious that the return of Ukraine within the framework of the Russian predominant influence would, actually, mean the beginning of the displacement of the U.S. and its Western partners (the so-called Collective West) firstly from the biggest portion of Eurasia, and then probably from many countries of the Global South (predominantly from Africa). In this context, it can be said that the Ukrainian military and paramilitary detachments are fighting for the continuation of the post-Cold War 1.0 hegemonic position of the U.S. in global politics.
It is not hidden that many experts in international relations connect U.S. support for Ukraine against Russia to the very specific economic interests of different Western international, multinational, and financial companies. Nevertheless, the economy of Ukraine already after 2014 was put into the hands of Western companies and, consequently, it is why the Collective West, led by the United States, is not ready to peacefully hand over certain territories to Russia which historically belonged to Russia and being settled by Russian majority population. It is estimated, for instance, that around half of all arable land in Ukraine was sold to Western companies before 2022. Western sources openly claim that the conflict in Ukraine is a battle for very rich natural/mineral resources that this East European country possesses but, they can be out of Western exploitation as a huge part of them is already under Russian control (in the Donbas region, for example).
The question is: How are natural resources (probably crucially?) important in the current war between NATO and Russia on the soil of (Soviet) Ukraine? It can probably be understood from the fact that being aware of the bare reality that the existence of a client (East European) political regime depends mainly on the support (in a variety of forms) by the foreign (Western) powers, the officials of the Ukrainian authorities since 2014 invoked the argument of significant reserves of rare minerals in order to secure the constant support of Western bosses even officially claiming that some 5% all the global reserves of critical raw materials are located in (pre-2014) Ukraine. They claim, for instance, that around 500.000 tons of lithium reserves are located in the Donbas region. Ukraine is one of the top 10 producers of titanium, iron, kaolin, manganese, zirconium, and graphite. According to relevant Western sources, (pre-2014) Ukraine has about 20.000 deposits of 116 different mineral resources, of which only 3.055 deposits were active before 2022, or only about 15% out of all. In other words, if Western companies want to exploit such natural resources their governments must support the Kiev regime in the war against the Russian minority in East Ukraine and Russia herself.
According to some estimations, the territory of Ukraine before 2014 (Soviet territory) possess circa up to 20% of the world’s reserves of all titanium ores. It must be noted that titanium ore is necessary for the aerospace, medical, automotive, and shipbuilding industries from a global perspective. In addition to having at least 500.000 discovered reserves of lithium needed for the production of car batteries (in fact, lithium reserves are larger), Ukraine is among the top 5 global producers of gallium, which is necessary for producing semiconductors. The territory of pre-2014 Ukraine had large reserves of beryllium, which is used for the production of atomic energy, aerospace, military, and electronics industries. Additionally, Ukraine has significant reserves of zirconium and apatite, which are needed for the production of atomic energy. In other words, according to some statistics, Ukraine ranks third in the world in terms of zirconium oxide reserves, just behind South Africa and Australia having also some 20% of the world’s graphite reserves. Ukraine has significant reserves of non-ferrous metals: copper (fourth place in Europe), lead (fifth place), zinc (sixth place) and silver (ninth place). Finally, Ukraine has significant reserves of nickel and cobalt as well.
Why Ukrainian natural resources are important to the Collective West which is supporting and financing the Ukrainian-NATO war against Russians and Russia from 2014 onward? It can be understood from the very facts that 1) today China controls up to 90% of the world’s total production of rare earth minerals, from extraction to processing, and 2) the EU imports 40% of all critical minerals exactly from China. Taking into consideration Ukraine’s rare natural/mineral reserves, Ukraine can greatly help Western economies to gain a greater level of independence from both China and Russia in the field of energy.
Nevertheless, in the first place out of all other natural/mineral resources in Ukraine, titanium is mostly interesting for U.S. policymakers regarding the current military conflict in the country. It has to be stressed that the largest deposits of titanium ore in Ukraine are still under the control of the Kiev regime. Significantly, Ukraine has huge reserves of titanium (second place in the world) while at the same time, the U.S. is forced to import around 90% of titanium for its economic purposes. Titanium is unavoidable in the aerospace industry and the production of commuting aircraft, and therefore, as an example, American Boeing provides up to 30% of its needs for titanium from Russia (in 2021, Russia was the world’s second exporter of titanium after China), but mainly processing ore from Ukraine and after February 2022 (the beginning of the Special Military Operation-SMO) from Africa and Asia. However, during Russian SMO, some of the most important mineral deposits in East Ukraine came under Moscow’s control.
The Donbas region is of prime importance regarding Ukrainian mineral and other natural resources and, therefore, is primarily well known for its huge coal reserves, which is why it is estimated that Russia currently controls 80% of Ukraine’s coal production. In the part of the Zaporozhie area that is annexed to Russia, there is one of the largest iron mines in former (Soviet territory) Ukraine. The Sea of Azov has significant oil and gas reserves. Both Zaporozhie and Donetsk areas possess two of the three largest lithium deposits in former Ukraine, which have not been exploited so far. However, the crucial point is that Russia would be among the top global producers of lithium having control of the Donetsk and Zaporozhie areas and their lithium reserves. Therefore, many Western experts linked the future of Europe’s energy question with the Ukrainian re-capture of Donbas for the very reason that this region possesses some of the largest lithium (and other) deposits in Europe.
In conclusion, the case of Ukraine makes clear that the issue of the exploitation of rare metals is, in fact, of a geopolitical nature, backed by the real fear of the Collective West of losing global economic-political dominance. Consequently, to get exploitation of several critical natural/mineral resources, the Collective West is ready to fight Russia till the last Ukrainian (mobilized by force) soldier.
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović
Ex-University Professor
Vilnius, Lithuania
Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter (X), Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/LegalStatement!
DonatetoSupportUs
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Stepan Bandera’s monument in Buchach, Ukraine with the flag (right) of a neo-Nazi Ukrainian political organization
The present-day Republic of Turkey is a legal successor state of the former Ottoman Empire (Sultanate). The Republic was founded and proclaimed by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on October 29th, 1923 as a result of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the lost WWI. A republican Turkey originally was based on the following six principles:Republicanism – Republic instead of a monarchical sultanate.Nationalism - An aggressive anti-minority policy within the state especially against the Kurds.Populism – It was attended in the atmosphere of the absence of a multiparty democracy to gather as much as popular support for the one-party political system.Statism ...
Compare Donald Trump and Barack Obama: Trump bans people from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Somalia but Obama bombed people from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Somalia! The question is: Who is a bigger racist?Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
This article first published in March 2014 at the very outset of the Ukraine crisis explains the nature of the Kiev proxy regime. we are dealing with a Neo-Nazi government supported by “Western democracy” and the “international community”. According to the New York Times, “The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here as another flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.” ( After Initial Triumph, Ukraine’s Leaders Face Battle for Credibility, NYTimes.com, March 1, 2014, emphasis added).“Flowering Democracy, Revolution”? The grim realities are otherwise. What is a stake is a ...
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Accused of Running Human Organ, Drug Trafficking CartelIn another grim milestone for the United States and NATO, the Council of Europe (COE) released an explosive report last week, “Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo.”The report charged that former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) boss and current Prime Minister, Hashim Thaçi, “is the head of a ‘mafia-like’ Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe,” The Guardian disclosed.According to a draft resolution unanimously approved December 16 in Paris, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights found compelling ...
Two months ago, hundreds of thousands of Chileans somberly marked the 40thanniversary of their nation’s September 11th terrorist event. It was on that date in 1973 that the Chilean military, armed with a generous supply of funds and weapons from the United States, and assisted by the CIA and other operatives, overthrew the democratically-elected government of the moderate socialist Salvador Allende. Sixteen years of repression, torture and death followed under the fascist Augusto Pinochet, while the flow of hefty profits to US multinationals – IT&T, Anaconda Copper and the like – resumed. Profits, along with concern that people in other ...
One has to wonder just how much longer the American people will silently permit the categorical failure of American foreign policy, both in theory and in practice. The evidence confirming the totality of our failure is breathtaking in scope and severity. Changes are needed to preserve U.S. national security and economic prosperity.Recent headlines have captured the character of this failure. Fifteen years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released findings that “corruption substantially undermined the U.S. mission in Afghanistan from the very beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. … We conclude that failure to ...
Serbia rescued more Jews than any other part of the former Yugoslavia during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem , The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, has awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations, those who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, to 127 individuals from Serbia, which is the highest number for the former Yugoslavia.On December 2, 2008, Arthur Koll, the Israeli Ambassador to Serbia, presented to the children and grandchildren of Borivoje Bondzic, Grozdana Bondzic, Ljubica Mandusic-Gazikalovic, and Jelica Rankovic the Righteous Among the Nations award. They are the descendants of Serbs who during the Holocaust risked their own lives ...
As 10,000 people took to the streets of Brussels on Sunday (7 June 2020) to protest as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, there was one landmark which drew their ire more than any other: the equestrian statue of King Leopold II outside Belgium’s royal palace.“Murderer!” the protesters cried as they climbed the statue and waved the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Had the statue been flimsy enough to pull down they would have done it, just as fellow BLM protesters toppled Edward Colston’s statue across the channel in Bristol. Estimates vary, but the consensus figure is ...
Maybe it is the best agreement ever signed… Maybe by applying it, Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, will enter an era of great friendship and enormous prosperity…Maybe… The only small detail is the majority of the deputies of the Greek Parliament do not know the agreement is so good. Their parties declared they are opposing the agreement and they won’t ratify it. Even the An.Ell. party, which is the junior partner of SYRIZA in the government, does not know how profitable is this agreement. They said they would vote No to the agreement when introduced in the ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
Stalinist “Land of Eagles” As in neighboring Yugoslavia, the communist revolutionary guerrilla forces, established by the aid and crucially supported by the Yugoslav communists led by local Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha, took over the power in Albania in 1944.[1] From 1945 to 1948 Albania was under the strong influence of Titoist Yugoslavia and both counties being under the hand of J. V. Stalin. Yugoslavia lavishly supplied Albania with deficient material, mainly nutritious ones, like wheat, etc. As testified by the Montenegrin zealot communist and revolutionist Milovan Đilas, one of the leading Yugoslav politicians at the time, and a member ...
One of the West’s top points in condemning Vladimir Putin’s “regime” since 2007 has been his alleged suppression of democratic institutions, including an assault on media freedom and imposition of government-directed propaganda. This week, the accusation was repeated in a resolution of the European Parliament calling for stronger counter-measures in defense of European values against “information warfare” from Moscow.The charges — that Russian media are only an instrument of state propaganda directed at the domestic population to keep Russian citizens in line and at foreign audiences to sow dissent among Russia’s neighbors and within the European Union — are taken ...
Following the death of President Tito in 1980 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia slid towards chaos. In the 1990s the plunge accelerated into civil war and one of the regions most affected was Kosovo from which Serbia withdrew after a NATO bomb and rocket offensive from 24 March to 11 June 1999. That blitz involved over 1,000 mainly American aircraft conducting some 38,000 airstrikes on Yugoslavia that killed approximately 500 civilians and destroyed much of the economic and social infrastructure of the region.NATO said its air bombardment was essential to halt repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and justified the ...
The ethnic demarcation that is promoted by Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic, between Serbs and Albanians is just another name for the creation of Greater Albania. Vucic statements and spinning of the necessity for the "demarcation" between Serbia and Kosovo caused shock among Serbs. Most of his political life, Vucic advocated for a Greater Serbia, but with coming to power, things changed. Against his demarcation is virtually the entire Serbia. From experts to the pillar and base of Serbs throughout history Serbian Orthodox Church. A few years ago, I wrote in my analytical column that Vucic came to power with the ...
Such important reality as is shown in this picture is virtually unpublishable in mainstream US ‘news’media, because US ‘news’media need to deceive their public about the most important international realities — such as that the US imposed upon Ukraine a nazi regime against Russia, and the US now lies to accuse Russia for doing what Russia must do in order to protect itself from the US nazi regime next-door.This picture is among many which were originally published in the excellent 4 July 2018 article by Asa Winstanley at The Electronic Intifada. His article was headlined "Israel is arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine”. That article focuses upon Israel’s strong support for ...
PrefaceA geopolitical issue of South-East Europe became of very importance for the scholars, policymakers, and researchers with the question of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire as one of the most crucial features of the beginning of the 20th century in European history. A graduate collapsing of the one-time great empire was accelerated and followed by competition and struggling by both, the European Great Powers and the Balkan national states, upon the territorial inheritance of it. While the European Great Powers have the aim to obtain the new spheres of political-economic influence in South-East Europe, followed by the task to ...
I won’t ever forget hearing the news – working in Pittsburgh as a marketing analyst, returning from lunch with colleagues when it was announced.November 22, 1963, was a Friday. The working day ended once the news broke, everyone in my department stunned, unable to focus on anything else.It was too early to know what evidence later revealed. Lee Harvey Oswald was a convenient patsy, uninvolved in what happened, a state-sponsored assassination, CIA, and secret service dirty hands likely responsible.Killing him mattered. Things might have been different had he lived, at least for a time. November 22, 1963, remains a stain ...
On Tuesday, March 7th, Russia’s top parliamentarian dealing with the Ukrainian refugee influx into Russia — dealing, that is, with the people who have fled Ukraine as a result of U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2014 coup overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych — presented the first-ever comprehensive number of asylum-applicants from Ukraine who have received asylum there after that February 2014 coup. The Russian government had never before publicly provided a number, but does have an established system of processing refugees, including assignment of official refugee status, which «allows the recipient various social benefits, including unemployment compensation» and so each Ukrainian refugee has ...
Today the Old (dying out) Continent is under multi-faced crises pressure some of them having older roots but the others are the product of current political decisions and moves by the European decision-makers (and those who are behind them across the Ocean).The European oldest and mostly painful crisis-problem is a biological declination of the whole continent what from the economic point of view means, at least for the western countries, an import of a huge number of the „outsiders“ in order just to keep the same level of the economic production and national GDP. This solution of course produces a ...
Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, a little more than a year ago, in July 2014 were the focus of attention in Europe and North America, accused, without a shred of forensic evidence, of shooting down an unarmed civilian Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine. The Russians were deemed out to restore the Soviet Union with their agreement to the popular referendum of Crimean citizens to annex into the Russian Federation and not Ukraine. Western sanctions were being thrown at Russia by both Washington and the EU. People spoke of a new Cold War. Today the picture is changing, and profoundly. ...
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović
