RUSSIA has launched a devastating drone strike on Odesa – just hours after the US and Ukraine signed a landmark mineral deal.
Two people were killed and at least 15 more were by Vladimir Putin’s blitz – marking a clear rebuke of the new agreement.
Raging fires were sparked and various buildings were damaged, according to emergency services.
Regional governor Oleh Kiper said: “The enemy attack damaged residential high-rises, private houses, a supermarket, a school, and cars.”
He confirmed that rescue workers were extinguishing flames following the horrific attack.
Ukraine’s state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia said the overnight attack damaged its tracks and various trains.
They said: “Railway employees are carrying out rapid repair work to ensure that freight trains run to ports without interruption.
“They are currently following an alternative route.”
The company added that one of the people killed in the strikes was a railway worker.
Ukraine’s air force said that mad Vlad launched five ballistic missiles and 170 drones during the overnight blitz.
74 drones were shot down while another 68 did not reach their targets, according to the force.
Images showed vile Vlad’s damage – with fiery infernos blazing up in apartments and civilians fleeing from their homes.
It comes mere hours after the Russian tyrant was dealt a massive blow due to Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky’s agreement to a critical minerals deal.
The long-awaited deal comes two months after a historic bust-up between The Don and his Ukrainian counterpart which shocked the world.
For Kyiv, the deal is central to binding it to Washington’s might and preventing any more Russian invasions after a peace deal.
Trump has vowed he wants peace in Ukraine, but has said that the US must be repaid for all the military support it has given the country.
The deal will provide Washington privileged access to new investment projects to develop Ukraine’s natural resources, including aluminium, graphite, oil and natural gas.
It also means America will continue to back Ukraine in the war.
Zelensky did not go to Washington to sign the deal – instead it was inked by Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
She said after: “Together with the United States, we are creating the Fund that will attract global investment into our country.”
Trump initially was due to close the deal when Zelensky visited the White House back in February.
But plans were derailed after their historic White House row, which saw the infamous shouting match erupt and Trump asking Zelensky to leave.
After rounds of back-and-forth diplomatic negotiations, both Washington and Kyiv agreed to sign the deal Wednesday.
Announcing the signing of the deal in Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it showed “both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.”
He added: “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.
“And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
UNCLE SAM’S SECURITY
Ukrainian officials hope that signing the deal proposed by Trump will firm up American support for Kyiv in the more than three-year-old war.
A former Trump advisor told LBC the developing US-Ukraine minerals deal will be a “trip wire” that Russia will not cross.
He said: “It would engage the American military. It puts the Americans squarely in the middle of the Ukrainian state. It is a trip wire that Putin would dare not to cross.”
Trump had originally sought $500 billion in mineral wealth — around four times what the United States has contributed to Ukraine since the war.
He has previously baulked at offering security guarantees to Ukraine and has rejected its aspiration to join Nato.
But Trump said on Wednesday that a US presence on the ground would benefit Ukraine.
“The American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging,” Trump said at the cabinet meeting.
He reiterated that the US should get something for its prior aid to Kyiv, thus the effort to secure a deal for Ukraine’s plentiful deposits of rare earth minerals.
“I assume they’re going to honour the deal. We haven’t really seen the fruits of that deal yet. I suspect we will,” Trump said after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Ukraine holds some five per cent of the world’s mineral resources and rare earths, according to various estimates.
But work has not yet started on tapping many of the resources, and many sites are in territory now controlled by Russian forces.
Notably, Ukraine has around 20 per cent of the world’s graphite, an essential material for electric batteries, according to France’s Bureau of Geological and Mining Research.
Ukraine is also a major producer of manganese and titanium, and says it possesses the largest lithium deposits in Europe.
Russia controls about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory after more than three years of brutal fighting that has killed tens of thousand,s including civilians.
Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/14141597/russia-ukraine-drone-strike-odesa-vlad/
