The Mineral We Will Never Put in a Deal

They signed for our minerals, but our rarest element isn’t in the ground

MUCH HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT THE mineral deal. And with all honesty, I still don’t know exactly what it’s about.

Maybe you’re feeling like I am. Too many details. Too many statements. Too many suits shaking hands while the mothers of Odesa and Kyiv are still sweeping glass from their children’s hair.

Too many numbers, and too little of what Ukraine is actually made of.

Every time I try to read more, I understand less. Or maybe it’s just my confused mind.... But still, this is not a news journal.

This is just my heart. And from my heart, I’ll tell you what I see.

This deal was signed with a country under invasion.

A country under war. A country whose land is still occupied by those who are killing our families.

A country of families that have been split in two. Those who stayed, and those who had to run. And we the ones who stayed, the last thing we can say is that we stay whole.

Every day, we lose someone. Every night, we count them. Last night, it was Odesa. Tomorrow, it will be somewhere else.

And still, even as so many of us are being buried, there are people in the world who push for business.

Deals. Contracts. Profits.

Do you understand how absurd this is?

If your city were burning, and someone came to sell you a future, would you sign? Or would you scream?

We are living in emergency. This country has no condition to think about minerals. About mining. About percentages and royalties.

We are not even whole enough to grieve properly, and they still want to discuss extraction.

But I understand that the world doesn’t run on fairness, and the rules were written long before we arrived to this table.

So we do what desperate nations do.

We do what desperate people do.

We raise our heads. We swallow our emotions. We say yes, even when every part of us wants to scream no.

I never had the chance and honor to meet Zelenskyy personally. But I am completely sure that he would never sign anything that would harm his country. And I’m not talking about his character or skills.

I know that because I live here, and there’s just no more room left for harm.

He signed it because he had to. Because someone came to the door while our house was still burning and asked us to sell the bricks.

You don’t argue when your children are starving. You say yes, even if it breaks your dignity.

That’s what this was. A deal made not by power, but by pressure. Not by strength, but by survival.

It’s like negotiating a plate of food with someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks and is watching their child get thinner in front of them.

It’s not a contract. Let’s not pretend. It’s just pressure dressed up to look like respect.

And still, I trust our president. Because in war, you don’t always get to win.

Sometimes you choose the lesser pain so you can stay alive long enough to stop the bigger one.

We’ve already lost too much in this war to let pride be the thing that kills us.

And let me say something else.

Yes, this country has minerals.

I’m sure that every metal in the periodic table is found buried somewhere in this wounded but immense land.

But the most precious one we have is not underground.

It’s not nickel. It’s not copper. It’s not lithium.

It’s bravery.

It’s called Ukrainium.

Don’t confuse it with uranium. This is far more rare.

It is a metal that no scientist has found in the earth, but every Ukrainian knows Ukrainium lives in the heart of the people.

It lives in the mothers who walk children to school, knowing the siren could sound at any second.

It is in the blood of the grandfathers who won’t leave their homes because their neighbors have no one else.

In the bones of firefighters who go back even when the flames are not done.

That’s Ukrainium. Measured in courage. In resistance. In dignity

You won’t see it in a spreadsheet, but please know that it holds our entire country up.

It’s not something you can export. It’s not something you can mine. It’s not something you can sell.

And that’s why it was never included in any deal. That part of us isn’t up for sale. It never was.

Ukrainium is not part of the periodic table.

But if there is ever a new one, or at least a new class for elements that carry pain and still give light, this metal will be the first on it.

And one day, scientists will discover others like it.

I believe there are more.

A whole family of human metals, made not of atoms but of sacrifice.

Made of love.

Of resilience.

Of sorrow.

Of dignity.

But Ukrainium is the first. And it belongs to us.

No matter how desperate we become, no matter how many papers we’re forced to sign, we will never include Ukrainium in any deal.

Because that would be selling ourselves.

And the bravest thing we have, they will never touch it.

🇺🇦

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