MOSCOW, May 5. /TASS/. The minerals agreement with Washington is a continuation of the suffering of the Kiev regime, said Nikolay Azarov, who served as Ukrainian prime minister from 2010 to 2014.
"For the Kiev regime, this [signing the agreement] is an extension of the agony it is currently experiencing. This is for sure," he said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
According to Azarov, the Ukrainian authorities are already celebrating this agreement, but in reality it is a humiliating document for the people of Ukraine.
"[They] are already saying everywhere that we have secured some kind of an investment fund for Ukraine that will develop something there, create something, develop our country, and so on," he continued.
"But from the perspective of the people of Ukraine and the nation as a whole, this is a deep humiliation. An allegedly independent, sovereign country was pressured like that and forced to give all its resources to someone else."
On May 1, the Ukrainian government released the text of the minerals deal. Many media outlets and Rada deputies, after reviewing its provisions, expressed concern over its terms, noting that the document implies the loss of part of Kiev's economic sovereignty. In particular, it grants the United States long-term preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources, while lacking the security guarantees frequently discussed in the office of Vladimir Zelensky.