The court seized the largest lithium deposit on Ukraine

The Pechersk District Court of Kiev has arrested a number of sites of the largest lithium deposit on Ukraine at the request of the Office of the Prosecutor General, reports LIGA.net with reference to NV. We are talking about 51 sites of the Polokhovsky lithium deposit in the Kirovograd region, follows from the court decision of March 7, 2025. They were developed by LLC Ukrlitiydobycha Sergey Tabalov. The arrest was imposed as part of a case that has been under investigation since 2016. It is connected with the illegal, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, obtaining permission to mine lithium.

Lithium reserves on The Polokhivskoye field exceeds 760 thousand tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (760 LCE kt). Tabalov invested more than 100 million hryvnia ($ 2.4 million) in the development of the Polokhovskoye field, and he paid another 119 million hryvnia ($ 2.9 million) for the license.

The court's decision was made against the background of the discussion of the agreement on minerals between Ukraine and the United States.

Ukraine and the United States were going to sign an agreement on joint extraction of Ukrainian resources in February, but the deal fell through due to a quarrel in the Oval Office during Vladimir Zelensky's visit to the United States. Later, Washington offered Kiev a new, tougher version of the agreement. On April 17, First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko announced the signing of a memorandum that confirms the intention to "finalize and conclude an agreement" on resources that will be beneficial to both countries.

The head of the office of the Ukrainian leader, Andriy Yermak, said that Ukraine could offer the United States such minerals as lithium, titanium, and uranium. The US Geological Survey, among the 50 most important resources for national security and the economy, named a number of metals whose deposits are on the Ukraine, in particular, beryllium, graphite, lithium, manganese, titanium and zirconium.