I picked this tweet up this afternoon from Simplicius, but I heard a summary of it within the last few days. The map is self explanatory—except that “costs” should be something like “value”. In line with the principle that a picture is often worth a thousand words—or however many, you get the idea—this map tells you at a glance why the Anglo-Zionists are happy to trade Ukrainian lives for control of the Donbas. Why, as Lindsey! likes to say, that tradeoff is such a bargain. It also tells you at a glance why the Anglo-Zionists are freaking out over the Russian drive on Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk is the gateway to the open steppes that stretch without much of a break to the Dnieper River—right through the Dnipropetrovsk region, which is also increasingly threatened by a Russian offensive north from Zaporozhye. Finally, you can also see at a glance why since 2014 the Anglo-Zionists helped Ukraine build multiple fortified lines the likes of which haven’t been seen since WW1—in preparation for a drive to regain the totality of the Donbas. As The Capitalist Tool says, this is a war of the Anglo-Zionists for control of resources.
Global Thinker @talkrealopinion
According to a research by Forbes Ukraine reserves of natural resources worth up to $7 trillion out of around $15 trillion in all of Ukraine are located in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. When Lindsey Graham talks about natural resources in Ukraine this is what he means:
The West has run up vast sovereign debt that can be neither repaid nor rolled over endlessly. And the Deep State was counting on stealing Ukraine's mineral wealth as a means of putting off the inevitable bankruptcy. Russia is not allowing that to happen and the Elites have no backup plan. This means that the wheels start coming off next year no matter who is elected in November. The likely outcome of this dilemma is they will first try to force a war in the Middle East via an attack on Iran. If that fails, they will try to force a direct war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine. If that fails, they will try to force civil wars in Western countries using the imported invaders and use the resulting turmoil and violence to transition these governments into techno-tyrannies. Bumpy road ahead.
A recent WEF article on the subject.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/07/the-future-of-critical-raw-materials-how-ukraine-plays-a-strategic-role-in-global-supply-chains/
This part, right at the end, caught my attention:
"Recently, Ukraine began auctioning exploration permits for lithium, copper, cobalt and nickel, offering lucrative investment opportunities in refining critical raw materials. These investments can drive Europe’s green transition and support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and reintegration."
That last sentence is purely delusional but about what you'd expect from the WEF. Also the choice of the word 'refining' seems out of place. First you have to find the minerals in economic concentrations, then you have to build the mine to extract them, and only then can you talk about 'refining' them, so what are they trying to say here?
As as stock investor of 20 years, about half of that time focused on mineral exploration, I don't recall ever reading in the professional journals and online forums anything about mineral exploration in Ukraine. I think the reason is fairly clear. Political risk is at the top of every mining investor's check list. Long before you turn a drill you have to look at how stable the political environment is, which includes potential changes of government, institutional corruption and interference, ecological constraints, indigenous rights, and of course insurgency and war.
Auctioning exploration permits to me sounds like an act of desperation to raise funds for the war effort (not to mention filling the already bulging pockets of the people in charge). The thing to understand here is that in mineral exploration there's no guarantee of finding anything worth digging up, and even if you do, you still have to find a buyer for the project which, as a junior explorer, you are typically typically in a weak position with regard to the other two players in that equation - the international mining corporations, and the government on whose territory the discovery is located.
For example, out of some 20 odd exploration projects we had exactly two that paid off. The rest were dead losses that either folded, or were bought out at below our investment cost. This is typical for someone who knows what they're doing, and in fact the returns from those two more than made up for the losses and represent about what you can expect as an exploration investor, i.e. 10 to 1 odds. That's if you know what you're doing and understand the risks. Most speculators don't and simply lose money until they give up in disgust because it's a really dirty game.
All this goes to say, that if someone approached me with the idea of exploring for anything in Ukraine, I would either snort in derision or laugh out loud. Lending credence to my contempt is the fact that even though I'm out of the game, I'm still on multiple mailing lists that promote exploration plays, and like I said, I haven't seen a single project in Ukraine. Not one.
Mining is something that most people, including those in charge of permitting and regulating the process, simply do not understand. It is unlike any other economic venture in that it is extremely capital intensive with lead times that can run to decades, and is completely dependent on commodity prices which are impossible to project over such long time frames. In the end, you're sitting on a depleting resource which you have to eventually replace to stay in the game, which has serious implications for profitability over the long term. Only oil and gas exploration has such serious risks attached with the difference that oil and gas will always have a market, whereas substitution and obsolescence is also a major concern for mining. For example, consider the impact cellular networks have had on copper demand, which is no longer needed for telephone lines. Composite carbon materials are another risk if aluminum is your game. Then there's water pipes which used to consume a lot of steel, now mostly plastic. I could go on.
As always, the devil is in the details, and that is particularly true for mining. I honestly can't see anyone stepping up to buy these leases since the risk of losing your entire investment is staring you in the face, and there's nothing being done on Ukraine's part to mitigate any of that. On the contrary, they're adding to it daily. Same goes for the big agro corps like Monsanto and Cargill. Those guys are frantic because they're about to lose their shirts big time. All I can say is they aren't nearly as sophisticated as their counterparts in mining, who know better than to step into that (literal) minefield.