KYIV — The United States and Ukraine have signed a deal to establish joint investment in Ukraine’s mineral wealth, oil, gas and other natural resources, officials said Wednesday, in a move that would fulfill a key White House request and give Kyiv a degree of much-desired U.S. backing.

“As the President has said, the United States is committed to helping facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.”

The deal will establish the “United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund,” which will allow the “two countries to work collaboratively and invest together to ensure that our mutual assets, talents, and capabilities can accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery,” Bessent said in a statement.

Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s Minister of Economy, said the deal “reflects the United States’ dedication to Ukraine’s security, recovery, and reconstruction. … The document we have today can ensure success for both our countries — Ukraine and the United States.”

The latest version of the deal, reviewed by The Washington Post, falls short of providing any concrete security guarantees to Ukraine, but it states that Kyiv and Washington agree it affirms a “long-term strategic alignment” between the two countries and U.S. “support for Ukraine’s security, prosperity, reconstruction, and integration into global economic frameworks.”

That language alone marks a win for Kyiv, which has been seeking any show of support from the U.S. since the relationship between the two countries turned rocky under President Donald Trump. Ukraine will seek significantly more tangible security guarantees under any future peace deal.

This agreement makes no mention of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such facility in Europe, which Russia violently seized in early 2022 and now occupies. U.S. officials have proposed taking control of the plant as part of a future deal to end the war.

Ukraine initially marketed its potentially vast mineral wealth as a possible investment opportunity under President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan” that he introduced in September. But an initial version of such a deal, presented to Zelensky by Bessent in February, offered very little to Ukraine and described the arrangement as a means for Washington to recoup the cost of its military aid to Ukraine.

Zelensky refused to sign the document, insisting he would not agree to any deal that reclassified aid as debt. He also criticized that version’s lack of wording regarding Ukraine’s future security.

Ukrainian officials then rewrote the deal and intended to sign a different, initial version when they visited Washington in February. That plan went haywire when Trump and Vice President JD Vance lambasted Zelensky on live TV in the Oval Office, before canceling the rest of his visit to the White House.

Since then, the lack of agreement has hung over U.S. talks with Ukraine over a separate peace deal with Russia. Trump, who prides himself as a dealmaker, has grown increasingly impatient, writing on his Truth Social site last week that the mineral deal “is at least three weeks late.”

“Hopefully, it will be signed IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote.

A Ukrainian familiar with the process said despite reports of widespread disagreement, the discussions were productive and both sides listened to each other’s arguments.

“Ukraine reached a strong agreement which, if properly implemented — and that’s key — could lead to mutual success,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. “Ukraine truly needs U.S. investment.”

The latest draft of the deal adjusts several key points that Ukraine had objected to in past versions. Kyiv had, for example, raised concerns over language in a different draft that it feared could have put it in violation of European Union laws by offering advantages to American investors.

Ukraine is urgently attempting to join the bloc of nations and must ensure that its laws conform to it. The text includes a provision that protects Ukraine from any binding agreement that may hamper its goal of E.U. accession. It also allows for the possibility of future good-faith negotiations to rewrite parts of the deal if Ukraine legally must do so.

Svyrydenko said “the agreement complies with the Constitution … aligns with national legislation and does not contradict any of Ukraine’s international obligations. Importantly, the agreement will also send a message to other global players that Ukraine is a reliable long-term partner — for decades to come”

The agreement also nixes old language that would have set up Ukraine to reimburse Washington for past U.S. military aid. Instead, it says that future military aid contributions can be considered part of American contributions to the fund.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Wednesday that the two sides were finalizing “technical details” regarding the deal, which he described as a “milestone” for Ukraine.

Still, the deal reflects largely hypothetical questions given the substantial uncertainty over the future of the sector in Ukraine, said Oleg Ustenko, who served as an economic adviser to Zelensky.

Currently, foreign investors are reluctant to significantly scale up mineral projects in Ukraine for a number of reasons, including the war. Trump cannot force private U.S. firms to make expensive and potentially unprofitable investments.

“Trump wants to present this as a victory for the Americans, but it’s not Trump who will invest, and it’s not the U.S. who will invest — you need the private sector,” Ustenko said. “So I think it’s more symbolic than anything else right now.”

Alex Jacquez, who served as a senior official on minerals in the Biden administration, said it’s extremely unlikely Ukraine has the ability to develop a new mining industry in lithium or rare earth metals, calling the trillions of dollars in natural resources claimed by the Trump administration to be illusory. Ukraine does have a large iron ore industry, but the draft agreement does not appear to include it.

“The bottom line is Ukraine has deposits of a variety of critical minerals being valued at essentially imaginary numbers,” Jacquez said. “There is a reason few of these mining projects are actually being developed outside of China — under current economic conditions, it makes little sense for investors.”

Stein reported from Washington. Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv contributed to this report.