By Galina Korol | 2026-02-17

Russia has launched a geological exploration program running through 2031 to survey mineral deposits across occupied Ukrainian territory, including lithium reserves that could be worth billions in the global battery market. Ukrainian intelligence says the Kremlin is turning conquered land into a resource base for its war economy.

In January, Vladimir Ezhikov, a senior Russian-appointed official in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, outlined plans to begin exploring rare earth elements in occupied Donetsk Region this year. Ezhikov said the region has five known deposits and about 15 rare earth occurrences identified during the Soviet period.

"For this task preparations are now being made for a state exploration program in order to delineate these deposits, assess the economic feasibility of developing them, more precisely calculate the volume, and then after that, it will probably be a little easier to talk to businesses that would be able to come in to handle the extraction on an industrial scale," Ezhikov told TASS on January 11.

Ukrainian intelligence sees a different motive. In a January 15 analysis, Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service said Russia's geological exploration program aims to turn occupied territories into a resource base "for patching budget holes and supporting the war economy."

According to the agency, the Kremlin has intensified its interest in Donbas minerals as Russia's oil sector struggles with rising production costs, sanctions, technological constraints and export problems. Geological exploration in occupied Ukraine, it argued, is less about regional development and more about seizing strategic raw materials while bypassing international law.

Trillions on paper

Russia's renewed interest coincides with heightened discussion of Ukraine's resource potential.

In 2023, Forbes valued Ukraine's mineral wealth at nearly $15 trillion. That figure is almost double the $7 trillion to $10 trillion cited in government documents in the early 2000s, or roughly $150,000 to $200,000 per capita. Forbes estimated total mineral resources at about 111 billion tons.

More than 70% of the estimated value is concentrated in three eastern regions: Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Luhansk. Bituminous coal accounts for 62% of the total value, iron ore 14%, while rare earths and other strategic minerals each make up no more than 5%. The estimates reflect 2023 prices and may have shifted since.

Despite the headline figure, the economic reality is more complex.

"Despite the $15 trillion appraisal, the actual economic effect will be orders of magnitude less," Volodymyr Landa, head of investment screening at Ukraine's Economic Security Council and author of the Forbes assessment, told Kontur.

Landa said many deposits are not economically viable, especially under wartime conditions and occupation. "To invest in mining, you need a durable, fair and long-term peace -- a ceasefire alone will not create the conditions required to invest in this sector," he said.

Lithium, often dubbed "white gold," illustrates both the promise and uncertainty.

In June 2025, Le Figaro reported that Russian forces' occupation of the village of Shevchenko led to Ukraine losing control of one of its largest lithium deposits. The site in Donetsk Region covers nearly 40 hectares (about 99 acres). Deutsche Welle reported days later that this was the second of Ukraine's four major lithium deposits to fall under Russian control. Another, Kruta Balka in Zaporizhzhia Region, has been occupied since 2022.

The Shevchenko deposit first appeared on Soviet geological maps. In 1982, geologists confirmed lithium-bearing ore but did not verify recoverable reserves. No mining took place in the Soviet era or afterward. The issue resurfaced in 2020, when Ukrainian specialists revisited archival data. Updated estimates suggest the site contains more than 2.2 million tons of lithium ore, with lithium oxide concentrations ranging from 0.3% to 4%. Without further study, the exact volume of extractable metal remains unclear, but the resource potential is significant.

Mining mirage

Energy analyst Gennady Ryabtsev, chief researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, questioned whether the occupation authorities have a realistic plan.

"This demonstrates basic lack of sense. It's unclear what exactly they intend to explore there and who will actually go work on mined territory that now for the most part looks like a lunar landscape," Ryabtsev told Kontur.

He added that everything that could be closed on these territories has already been closed, and there are no prospects for extraction in the coming decades. He argued that Donbas' traditional backbone -- anthracite coal -- has lost both strategic and market value.

"Nowadays no one needs Donbas's main 'gold.' There's no money to maintain the mines and no workers -- everyone who could have worked is already on territory controlled by Ukraine. And most important, there's no demand," Ryabtsev said.

Even previously profitable mines remain shuttered, he added, citing competition within Russia and limited market appetite. "No one wants to have extraction going on next door that will sell the product practically for nothing. In the Ukrainian era that brought massive profits and made Donetsk the 'city of a million roses,'" he said.

Donbas once offered more than coal. Artemsil salt, once mined there, remains in short supply in Ukraine. "The majority of Ukrainian households haven't been able to get used to another salt," Ryabtsev said.

He also pointed to the Yuzivska field in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, long viewed as strategically important for various minerals and fossil fuels, including coal mine methane that Ukraine had planned to integrate into its gas supply before the occupation.

That potential has been largely destroyed.

"Everything that allowed Donbas to be one of Ukraine's most profitable and wealthy regions has now been cut down to nothing by the 'liberators,'" Ryabtsev said.

He described reconstruction efforts as largely cosmetic and suggested financial motives.

"This could be yet another scheme to 'acquire' money. We're already seeing that money for construction in the occupied territories is being laundered through a sinister pipeline," Ryabtsev said.

He remains skeptical that serious exploration will proceed in an active war zone.

"No one in their right mind would transport expensive equipment and conduct serious analyses in a combat zone," he said. "All these showcase construction projects, these 'mortgaged buildings' without infrastructure, attempts to hide problems with water and basic supplies -- these are messages addressed to one person [Vladimir Putin]. You need to paint a picture that matches his perception of these regions."