section_path: Related issues/War over natural resources
section_name: War over natural resources
paragraph_text: War over natural resources
  
  In August 2012, the Ukrainian government of Mykola Azarov, who, like the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, maintained good relations with the Russian leadership, commissioned a consortium including Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, OMV Romania and the Ukrainian state-owned NAK Nadra Ukrainy to extract oil and natural gas in the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea. In 2013, Italy's largest oil and gas producer, Eni, was granted a license to extract oil and gas on the east coast of Crimea. In 2014, it was reported that if Crimea were annexed, the production licenses could be reassigned and previous license holders would find themselves in a legal grey area.
  
  Economic interests were also a motive for Russia's attack on Ukraine and its annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Lithium deposits in the Donbas and Ukraine's grain wealth would mean a "monopoly on the world market" for Russia if it took over Ukraine. Although the US government estimates that Russia's economic losses from the war and Western sanctions will amount to around $1.3 trillion by 2025, and the direct financial expenditure for conducting the war is estimated at $250 billion (as of autumn 2024) - costs that Russia could not have foreseen. However, according to a study published in summer 2022 by the Canadian think tank SecDev, Russia controlled energy reserves, metals and minerals worth at least $12.4 trillion in the occupied territories in Donbas. The total value of national raw material stocks in Ukraine is estimated at over $26 trillion. The value of lithium and rare earths in Ukraine is estimated at $11.5 trillion. In January 2024, the Russian occupation administration in Donetsk Oblast granted the Russian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources a "permission" to mine lithium in the Shevchenko deposit near Kurakhovo, where the lithium deposit is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of US dollars.
  
  The green transformation or energy transition in Europe is threatening Russia's usual business and existence model, the trade in fossil fuels. A few months before the start of the Russian invasion, the European Union (EU) and Ukraine had signed a Green Deal or a transformation program for Ukraine, partly because the Ukrainian economy was at the time the most energy-intensive in the world with the most ineffective and expensive thermal power generation. In addition, 22 of the 30 raw materials that the EU classified as strategically important are available in large quantities in Ukraine. Russia could only benefit from the energy transition in Europe if it acquired the resources and infrastructure on Ukrainian soil. Europe would then be even more dependent on Russia. If Russia were to achieve its war goals, Russia could steal and gain more than it would lose in peace through reduced exports to Europe.