At least 9 dead in drone strikes after US and Ukraine sign minerals deal
[May 02, 2025]
By HANNA ARHIROVA and ELISE MORTON
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian drone attack left at least seven people
dead and a Russian strike on Odesa killed two people Thursday, officials
said, just hours after Kyiv and Washington signed a long-anticipated
agreement granting U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral resources.
The attack in the partially occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine,
which struck a market in the town of Oleshky, killed seven and wounded
more than 20 people, Moscow-appointed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said.
"At the time of the attack, there were many people in the market,” Saldo
wrote on Telegram. After the first wave of strikes, he said, Ukraine
sent further drones to “finish off” any survivors.
Meanwhile, a Russian drone strike on the Black Sea port city of Odesa
early Thursday killed two people and injured 15 others, Ukrainian
emergency services said.
Regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said the barrage struck apartment buildings,
private homes, a supermarket and a school.
Videos shared by Kiper on Telegram showed a high-rise building with a
severely damaged facade, a shattered storefront and firefighters
battling flames.
A drone struck and ignited a fire at a petrol station in the center of
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
Following the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that
Russia had ignored a U.S. proposal for a full and unconditional
ceasefire for more than 50 days now.
“There were also our proposals — at the very least, to refrain from
striking civilian infrastructure and to establish lasting silence in the
sky, at sea, and on land,” he said. "Russia has responded to all this
with new shelling and new assaults.”
Agreement on mineral wealth
The U.S. and Ukraine on Wednesday signed an agreement granting American
access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, finalizing a deal months in
the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid
concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing
peace negotiations with Russia.
Zelenskyy originally proposed such a deal last year as a way of helping
secure Ukraine's future by tying it to U.S. interests. Ukrainian
officials said previous versions of the accord would have reduced Kyiv
to a junior partner and gave Washington unprecedented rights to the
country’s resources but that the version signed Wednesday was far more
beneficial to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said Thursday that the signing of the minerals deal was the
“first result” of the meeting he had with Trump at the Vatican during
the pope’s funeral and called the agreement “truly historic.”
During his nightly address, he said that, per the signed agreement,
there were no debts to be paid from past U.S. aid to Kyiv. He said the
agreement will be sent to the parliament to be ratified and that Ukraine
was "interested in ensuring that there are no delays with the
agreement.”
According to Zelenskyy, the agreement is “truly equal” and “creates an
opportunity for investments in Ukraine.”
“This is working together with America and on fair terms, when both the
Ukrainian state and the United States, which help us in defense, can
earn in partnership,” he added.
Despite that, America's top diplomat highlighted the uncertainty of a
larger peace deal that the U.S. is trying to broker between Ukraine and
Russia.
“They’re still far apart. They’re closer, but they’re still far apart,"
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on
Thursday night. “And it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very
soon to make this possible, or I think the president is going to have to
make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to
this.”
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Emergency personnel work at the site of a residential building
destroyed by a Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Thursday,
May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
Views in Ukraine
Tymofiy Mylovanov, former economy minister and current president of
the Kyiv School of Economics, said that despite what he described as
“unimaginable pressure” during negotiations on the minerals deal,
Ukraine succeeded in defending its interests.
“This is a huge political and diplomatic win for Ukraine,” Mylovanov
wrote on Facebook. “The deal looks fair.”
Mylovanov said the deal does not restrict Kyiv to selling only to
American buyers. Instead, he said, the deal recognizes contributions
from both sides: Ukraine’s in the form of revenues from new
projects, and the U.S. potentially through military assistance.
Kyiv residents voiced mixed reactions to the newly signed
U.S.-Ukraine economic agreement, with many saying they had not yet
had time to fully understand the deal’s implications.
Among those who spoke to The Associated Press about the deal was
Diana Abramova, who attended a rally in Independence Square
demanding information on missing Ukrainian soldiers. Her father,
Valentyn Stroyvans, went missing in combat last year.
“Any news is hard to take — whether it’s about negotiations or
anything else,” Abramova said. “But I still believe and hope that
any action will bring us closer to one thing: Ukraine’s victory.
Only victory.”
University lecturer Natalia Vysotska, 74, said she wasn’t familiar
with the details of the agreement but remained cautiously
optimistic.
"I don’t know what the terms are — they may not be favorable for
Ukraine at all. Still, if it was signed, our experts must have
weighed the pros and cons. I hope it will be beneficial.”
Others shared a more skeptical view. Iryna Vasylevska, a 37-year-old
Kyiv resident, expressed frustration and disillusionment with the
broader implications of the deal.
She told the AP she feels terrible that “our land is just a
bargaining chip for the rest of the world and that we do not have
our own full protection, but rely on someone.”
“My vision is that instead of strengthening ourselves, we continue
to give it all away. I feel sorry for our land and for our people,”
she said.
Russian reaction to the minerals deal
Reaction to the signing was generally muted in Moscow on Wednesday,
a holiday in Russia. But the deputy chair of Russia’s National
Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Trump had forced
Ukraine to effectively “pay” for American military aid with its
mineral resources.
“Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national
wealth of a disappearing country," he claimed in a post on Telegram.
Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the Russian Civic Chamber’s commission
on sovereignty, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that
Zelenskyy had effectively handed Ukraine over to “legally prescribed
slavery.”
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