The Telegraph reports that a leaked draft of President Donald Trump’s “minerals deal” would radically rewire Ukraine’s economy and energy posture in ways that critics say align with Moscow’s interests. According to the text described by the paper, Kyiv would be pressed to pay sweeping reparations to the United States while granting U.S.-linked entities a 50% claim on future revenues from oil, gas and other hydrocarbons, plus extensive stakes in metals, ports and infrastructure—terms one expert on energy law called an unprecedented “expropriation document.” The leak portrays a package that puts up little in the way of U.S. security guarantees while locking Ukraine into long-term obligations it cannot exit, and it builds on earlier Trump-era drafts that demanded a $500bn “payback” and conferred rights of first refusal on exports. telegraph.co.ukfreerepublic.comyahoo.comThe Week The draft also sketches a broader energy gambit: a U.S.–Russia partnership to restore large volumes of West Siberian gas to Europe, with flows initially running through Ukraine’s legacy transit network and, later, via a repaired Nord Stream route, in which U.S. companies and Trump-aligned financiers would take major stakes. That vision would upend Kyiv’s post-January 2025 halt to Russian gas transit and re-entrench European reliance on Russian molecules just as the EU has pledged to eliminate them by 2027. freerepublic.comReuterscarnegieendowment.orgCEPAtelegraph.co.uk Beyond the economic sweep, analysts note legal and political tripwires. EU leverage from frozen Russian central-bank reserves hinges on unanimity; a single member’s dissent could collapse the freeze and allow Moscow to withdraw funds from Euroclear, weakening Western bargaining power. rusi.org Ukraine, for its part, has publicly resisted handing over control of pipelines or reopening Russian transit without firm security returns, as reflected in reporting on U.S. demands for control of a key east-west pipeline and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s push for any deal to be reciprocal and sovereignty-preserving. The Guardian Taken together, the leaked draft and related negotiations suggest an attempt to trade rapid de-escalation for deep structural concessions from Kyiv, while reviving a Russian export architecture that Europe has spent three years trying to unwind—an outcome likely to provoke fierce resistance in Ukraine and sharpen fault lines among its allies.