June 27, 2025
Another large lithium deposit in Donbas has come under Russian control. Ukraine has lost control of two of its four lithium deposits. According to the French edition of Le Figaro, the Shevchenko and Krutaya Balka fields in the DPR and the Zaporizhia region are now controlled by Russia.
Shevchenko is located about ten kilometers from the urban-type settlement of Velikaya Novoselka.
On June 26, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced that the village of Shevchenko in the specified region had been taken under control. The agency noted that military personnel of the Vostok group of Russian troops were working in this area.
French journalists were worried about the Russian Armed Forces taking control of the lithium deposit in the Donbas. "[Taking] this seemingly harmless village, (...) The Russians are taking over one of the most promising lithium deposits in Ukraine," they stressed.
It is noted that this deposit is considered promising because the ores are represented by spodumene, from which lithium is extracted more easily than from petalite. Deposits of rare earth metals have also been discovered at the Shevchenko site.
France has noticed that Ukraine has lost control over two of the four lithium deposits: in Shevchenko (DPR) and Krutoy Balka (Zaporizhia region). Two more — Polokhovskoye and Dobra — are located in the Kirovograd region. It is specified that none of them is currently in operation.
Retired Colonel Andrey Koshkin in a conversation with Lenta.ru did not rule out that Ukraine's loss of the second of the four lithium deposits would lead to a review by the United States of the terms of military support for Kiev.
According to him, "it's no secret that US President Donald Trump has signed a deal under which Ukraine must pay for military support with rare earth minerals." The military expert suggested that Washington would develop deposits on the territory of the republic on preferential terms, and send the extracted oil overseas. He called lithium one of the most demanded and irreplaceable metals, which is used to create energy storage devices. The loss of two out of four deposits calls into question the country's solvency, he said. According to the forecast, the White House may want to renegotiate the terms of the deal and offer other conditions for paying for military aid to Kiev.
Sources:
https://ura.news/news/1052955393