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American weapons, and implicitly greater Ukrainian involvement in the US-Russia negotiations, and longer-term American strategic interests / investment in Ukraine to 'keep the Americans in' as a counter-balance to Russia.
You remember those outrage articles from the last few weeks of Trump demanding extortionate amounts of critical minerals from Ukraine? And how Trump had paused weapon shipments of stuff already promised-but-not-delivered? And the recent Trump-Putin summit, where both Ukraine and Europe were non-invited to? This is what they were building towards.
Exact terms will be seen when it comes, but the basic premise is that this will be a typically Trumpian 'yuge' project in Ukrainian rare earth minerals, with the timeline to start being an ambiguous period in the future (presumably post-ceasefire). American corporations will get to be involved, and the general number I've seen thrown around is 50% of... something. Whether that's 50% of the profits, or 50% of the rare earth minerals extracted being allocated for US purchase / resale, or something else, it's unclear. Regardless- potentially exceptionally high by norms, where states tend to want to maintain a controlling stake in their natural resource projects, and since 50% is committed to the Americans, that means if Ukraine wants to sell other shares (such as to the Europeans), it may be doing so at its own project shares, rather than being able to dilute American project presence.
However, it's not 'just' extortion, but also transaction.
In the near term, signing is almost certain to unfreeze currently already-promised-but-undelivered weapons. Further, it probably comes in parallel with a new framework of continuing American arms support to Ukraine- probably some sort of 'we're not giving these away, but you can buy, and we can discuss favorable loans,' possibly backed by the Europeans, in a different agreeement. This will let Trump defang a non-trivial amount of the Ukraine-aid-skeptics whose motive is money, since going forward more of the weapons will be formatted as sales rather than donations. Since these weapons might be purchased on Ukraine's behalf by the Europeans (who look about ready to radically expand their borrowing potential), or possibly against the frozen Russian funds in European control (and thus putting a ticking clock pressure against Russia on prospects of getting those funds back), the weapons-transfer terms that may or may not formally accompany this deal are probably the more relevant gain in the near-term.
In the medium term, this concession will probably be the basis of Ukraine being a seat at the table in the negotiations (which, strictly speaking, was required for negotiations to be credible), while also creating an expectation against the 'Trump will end the war and the Americans immediately abandon Ukraine entirely.' Even if the Americans get a lion's share of the [profits], this is a lot of gain for the Ukrainian post-war economic restructuring, a basis for rebuilding the country's economic foundations after having lost the industry in the Russian-occupied east (with new mega-extraction efforts created a new baseline), and an encouragement for further European investments.
In the longer-term, it's these sort of investment-interests that provide an acceptable-to-Trump hook for longer-term American involvement in Ukraine post-war, which is part of the real prize for Ukraine. Precisely because this is liable to be framed / accused of being a Very Good Deal (extortion) for the Americans, it becomes a basis for even the Republican-Trumpian coalition to continue to have an interest in ensuring Ukraine's survival... since if Russia were to re-invade and roll over those investments, that would be a rather significant lost investment / rare earth stream. Here is a map of the relative dispersal of rare earth estimates in Ukraine. While pre-war it would have made far more sense to invest in the more developed east, a post-war investment in the west would help have a more secure future-war economic base not in short range of the Russian eastern front line.
Which is why even though the deal expected this week isn't expected to have any sort of long-term security guarantees, it sets the conditions for a longer-term American Interest in Ukraine which is what leads to such security support. Not just from the Americans, but also the Europeans who will be using this extortion for their own counter-balance investments, to further their own economic and thus military interests in Ukraine. As such, even if Ukraine isn't 'formally' part of NATO, Ukraine is 'purchasing' NATO-member buy-in to its future survival (and thus ability to maintain the concessionary deal).
Which, naturally, is something the Russians do not want, which is reason enough for the Ukrainians to consider it, even if they would prefer more favorable terms than Trump is demanding.
That's an interesting neocon fantasy, but the text was leaked https://kyivindependent.com/exclusive-the-full-text-of-the-final-us-ukraine-mineral-agreement/
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