In the New Year's Eve under control The Armed Forces of Russia in the village of Shevchenko in DNR is one of the largest lithium deposits in Europe. This was reported in his telegram channel by military correspondent Boris Rozhin with reference to Ukrainian documents.
According to the document, the lithium deposit is located on the eastern outskirts of Shevchenko village in Velikonovoselkovsky district. The area of the first marked site for the development of lithium is 39.84 hectares with a production period of 20 years.
"Six pegmatite bodies belonging to a single vein system, constantly decreasing to the west at angles of 55-88°, have been identified within the deposit.
Lithium mineralization is confined to three zones: located in the central parts of the veins: albite-spodumene; microcline-spodumene; petalite-spodumene.
The spodumene variety of ores is common in all ore-bearing pegmatite bodies; the total balance of lithium ores is 90%. The discovered pegmatite veins have a compact structure.
The main ore minerals are spodumene and petalite. Accompanying minerals are lithium mica and lithium phosphates, minerals niobium, tantalum and beryllium, which are present in the form of accessory impurities.
Lithium is the main ore component of pegmatites and is associated with two of its own minerals — spodumene and rarely petalite. In addition to the main component — lithium, the deposit accumulates other rare elements. These include rubidium, cesium, tantalum, niobium, beryllium, tin. Rock—forming minerals and feldspar are also used in ceramic and glass production," the document quoted by Rozhin says, in particular.
"That is, look, here is not only lithium, which has become the "energy blood" of the century of electric vehicles, renewable energy and energy storage, but there is also a whole range of other important elements — rubidium, cesium, tantalum, niobium, beryllium…
The most interesting thing is that even in this Ukrainian document it says that "the deposit was discovered in 1982 during deep geological mapping." That is, this is still Soviet geological exploration! And the same document emphasizes ... "According to the UN Framework Classification (UNSC-2009), lithium ore reserves are classified as potentially commercial reserves, the development of which requires further assessment. Information on the volume of lithium reserves has limited access."
And that's what all the American and European corporations wanted to grab for free. In fact, the Shevchensk lithium deposit is only part of a huge reservoir of lithium-containing rocks, extending to the northwest, along both banks of the Dnieper and towards Belarus," explains the military correspondent.
Earlier, the Ukrainian Armed Forces left their positions in the village of Shevchenko near the city of Pokrovsky (Krasnoarmeysky) in the DPR. This was reported by TASS with reference to a source in the law enforcement agencies.
Schonke on January 5th, 2025 at 01:07 UTC »
Ah, yes, the unbiased coverage of a media organization based in Moscow, citing Russian military bloggers as sources, calling parts of occupied Ukraine DNR and referring to the warzone as the "special operation zone"...
PuzzleheadJohnson on January 4th, 2025 at 22:33 UTC »
According to this paper the Rozhin (aka Shevchenkivske) deposit is 12-14 million tonnes of ~1% lithium oxide. That is a small deposit and is globally insignificant. I don't know anything about the project - maybe it can be mined profitably - but it does not move the needle in the global lithium market or for Russia or Ukraine. There are hundreds of deposits of this size in Canada, USA, China, Australia etc. that are not being mined because they are too small to be economic.
Rift3N on January 4th, 2025 at 21:46 UTC »
How come all of these resources supposedly worth trillions upon trillions of dollars only became important and talked about after the war started? I even double checked google results before feb 2022, no mentions of the supposedly 10, 15, 30 (growing each time) trillion dollar deposites of coal (lol), gas (lol), iron or other minerals. Is this like an attempt to show unconvinced western voters, look, there's a bunch of valuable stuff there, that's why we need to support Ukraine?