In a fiery speech marking three years since the start of Russia's Special Military Operation in Ukraine and Kursk, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed hope that Moscow could "cooperate" with American companies to extract rare-earth metals in Russia and the "new territories" in East Ukraine:

[W]e would be ready to offer [cooperation] to our American partners – when I say partners, I mean not only administrative and government structures, but also companies – if they showed interest in working together.

We certainly have an order of magnitude – I want to emphasize this – an order of magnitude more resources of this kind than Ukraine. Russia is one of the undisputed leaders in reserves of these rare and rare-earth metals. We have them in in Murmansk in the North, in Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus, in the Far East, in the Irkutsk region, and in Yakutia, in Tuva. These are quite capital-intensive investments, capital-intensive projects. We would be happy to work together with any foreign partners, including American ones.

Yes, by the way, regarding new territories, the same thing: we are ready to attract foreign partners, and our so-called new historical territories, which have returned to the Russian Federation, there are also certain reserves there. We are ready to work with our foreign partners, including the Americans, there.