Analysis: Ukraine rejects retroactive debt

Ukrainian MP Oleksii Goncharenko says Ukraine won’t agree to owe debt for past military aid tied to the minerals deal.

Transcript

00:00Ukraine and the U.S. are preparing to sign a memorandum of intent on the minerals deal.

00:07I was having a look at the draft proposal. It doesn't clarify whether profits from the

00:13investments will be used to pay back the U.S. for previous military aid under the Biden

00:19administration. Are you able to give us a more clear idea of how this minerals deal is actually

00:26going to work? Me neither. I also don't know what will be, how the draft will look like, and I think

00:32nobody knows because it's still not prepared. What we have yesterday was signed memorandum

00:38between two sides, but it was just an agreement to have agreement. For the moment, that's it.

00:45What is important for Ukraine first is that we can't accept debt, which was not a debt,

00:52retroactively. So it looks like we received what we received, it was support, but now,

00:59and it was said that it is free of charge, and now we're said that, okay, here is the bill,

01:06and here is the percent and interest on this money, annual interest. It's, I think it's

01:12unacceptable, both because it's not fair, and second, because it will open the Pandora box.

01:19And other countries can raise the same questions. So, yeah, that is unacceptable.