Russia Accuses West of 'Robbery and Looting'
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused "neocolonial" Western powers of modern "robbery and looting" in the pursuit of rare earth metals to gain an advantage in the artificial intelligence race.
These highly prized resources are vital for the manufacture of cutting-edge technology, and U.S. President Donald Trump has put a particular emphasis on procuring them from Ukraine, Greenland, China, and elsewhere.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also touted rare earths to Trump from the areas of eastern Ukraine currently occupied by Moscow, which tried to seize control of Kyiv in its full-scale invasion launched in February 2022.
"[Rare earth metals] are the prize in the trade wars underway between the key suppliers of AI solutions to the market," Zakharova wrote in an op-ed titled "Neo-coloniAIism" for the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, state news agency TASS reported.
"Political elites in Western countries, most of which don't have such reserves, seek to gain preempted and unrestricted access to the fields held by the countries of the global majority, and while doing so, they pursue an aggressive neocolonial policy bordering on robbery and looting."
This is a developing article. Updates to follow.
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