MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. The United States needs Ukraine's rare-earth metals, including lithium, and intends to take them as payment for military assistance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with participants in the academic and educational program of the A. M. Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Support Fund "Dialogue for the Future."

"It is no coincidence that US Senator Lindsey Graham said outright (he is not a diplomat and does not hide his thoughts), that the US needs to ensure that Russia suffer a defeat in Ukraine, because there are many rare-earth metals, including lithium," Lavrov said. "He said so to Vladimir Zelensky when he visited him recently. He said that the US needs these riches. And he added that they would help Ukraine and in return they would take all this from it as payback."

Lavrov noted that American companies had already bought up most of the fertile land.

"They keep talking about the 'Black Sea initiative', about the need to feed Africa. First of all, the West exported more than 50% of grain to the European Union, and not to Africa. American corporations made money on this grain. And they want to do the same to the rest of our neighbor's wealth," Lavrov stressed.