The information environment is so soiled right now, it is especially difficult to assess such matters.  And I, like many others, am upset about the rhetoric and methods that have been applied from the American side.  Nonetheless I think this may be a better deal than its current press indicates.  Let me note a few features at the margin, rather than trying to assess the entire situation comprehensively:

1. I don’t know what those mineral rights in Ukraine are worth, but past some level of corruption there is a resource curse (though not for Norway).  So losing half of that revenue may not be as bad for Ukraine as it sounds.  Was all that oil and gas wealth so good for Russia?

2. For better or worse, the mineral rights deal will, de facto, be renegotiated many times.  Read your Williamson and Tirole!  So whatever your opinion of what ends

Keep reading this article on Marginal Revolution.