OPINION - The most interesting thing about the Ukraine-US minerals deal is what it didn't contain

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant (l) and Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko (r) sign the natural resources deal - (US Treasury)

Donald Trump has got it over the line: some sort of deal over the future of Ukraine, signed by May 1. The agreement in Washington for the joint US-Ukraine exploitation and development of natural resources, minerals, Rare Earth Elements, and oil, may be quite limited in time and place – but it is a beginning. It could be first realistic opportunity for talks to end more than three years of full-on war in Ukraine.

It may be that brief exchange within the precincts of St Peter’s just before the funeral of Pope Francis that got things going. Both presidents, Volodymyr and Donald, are men with more than a modicum of theatrical skill, after all.