Lithium, Chabadniks, television, politics and geopolitics.

A most interesting headline appeared in the NYT on January 8. A multi-billionaire by the name Ronald Lauder has gained control of an important Ukrainian lithium deposit. But there is so much missing in this story.

The article describes Lauder as a Trump insider, and paints the deal as a reluctant Ukrainian concession to please the fickle Don.

What the NYT leaves out is that Lauder has a very long history with Ukraine and Zelensky, one dating far back into the 1990s.

Indeed, it was Lauder’s investments that created 1+1, the highly influential Ukrainian television channel that Zelensky’s comedy studio worked with throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

One could even say that it was 1+1 that launched Zelensky to the presidency in 2019 — Ukrainians were already used to seeing Zelensky play the president, so why not elect him as well? The 2015 advertisement below reads ‘Servant of the People: the story of the next president’.

Life imitates art. Or does life imitate Lauder? If not for Lauder’s investments, 1+1 would have never existed. And Zelensky would not be president.

The relationship between Lauder and Ukraine is so deep and fruitful that this news of Lauder’s return to the country may signal the realization of that most coveted Ukrainian goal: Israelization. What this means is that the US, anchored by economic ties with Ukraine, would militarily support it indefinitely. In return for providing investment opportunities, the Ukrainian government would be free to be as dictatorial as it likes. Trump will then forget about calling for elections.

I say ‘Israelization’ partly because Lauder is one of the world’s most prominent Zionists. Besides, Zelensky enjoys the term as a description of Ukraine’s ideal future.

The ‘White Fuhrer’ of Ukraine’s fascist Azov movement also hopes that Ukraine will look like Israel in future. As does the new head of his presidential administration, lifelong covert operator Kyryllo Budanov. Ukrainian government officials often refer to the ‘Israeli model’.

Of course, this arrangement of minerals for weapons looks less like Israelization, and more like, say, Congolization, or Indonesization.

Whatever the best analogy, Zelensky may be right that he faces better chances with Trump than Biden. After all, the Democrats sometimes made a fuss about guaranteeing the rights of various pesky NGOs, and Democrat-leaning media were very displeased in July 2025, when Zelensky tried to shut down the anti-corruption organs set up by the Democratic party back in 2015.

Trump didn’t say a word about it. And why would he — it was these very anti-corruption organs that played a major role in instigating Russiagate in 2016. Zelensky was probably hoping that attacking the anti-corruption organs would leave Trump indifferent, or even admiring.

Granting minerals concessions to Washington also fits into this logic. Zelensky hopes that will no longer need to worry about the trappings of democracy as long as he pleases Trump.

And back in May 2025, Ukraine signed its famous ‘minerals deal’ with Washington. Though the details remain rather obscure, the overall contours are fairly clear: the US gets something like monopoly control over Ukrainian resources, and in return, Ukraine gets more military aid. Of course, the latter clause is less guaranteed than the former, but regardless.

But perhaps the latter clause will be fulfilled. After all, just as Trump is looking increasingly antagonistic towards Russia, the Ron Lauder lithium deal appears.

And the Lauder deal does seem to herald some important changes in Ukraine’s mineral sector — on January 7, Ukraine’s cabinet dismissed Oleg Hotsynets, the acting Head of the State Geological and Mineral Resources Service. Perhaps Lauder has a better replacement. Hotsynets was dismissed by prime minister Yuliya Sviridenko, the woman who signed the mineral deal with Washington back in May 2025.

Speaking of raw materials, the most rational explanation I’ve heard for Trump’s fixation on Venezuelan oil also has to do with the crusade against Russia. Gaining control of Venezuelan reserves wouldn’t be good for American producers, but it could lower global oil prices, thereby damaging the Russian budget.

And even more importantly than any possible effect on global oil prices, simply increasing global supply would make it easier for countries such as India to stop buying Russian oil. This fits in quite well with Trump’s apparent newly-found support — right after the Caracas operation — for massive secondary sanctions on countries buying Russian oil.

Lauder

Now, onto the chosen intermediary for Ukraine’s Israelization, or Congolization, or whatever it is — Ron Lauder.

He was the man who first told Trump he should take over Greenland back in 2019. Besides that, Lauder has invested many millions in Trump PACs since 2016. The two have apparently been friends since college.

We’ll soon get into Lauder’s decades-long presence in Ukraine. But besides eastern Europe, Lauder has been an important diplomatic representative and backchannel for the US across the world.

Lauder’s became head of the international department of the Estée Lauder Company in 1964. In 1984, this morphed into becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy at the United States Department of Defense.

In 1986, Reagan appointed Lauder US ambassador to Austria — a crucial country due to its neutrality, crawling with spooks of all kinds in the cold war.

I’d add that it would be ideal for Ukraine it it were to become a neutral country like Austria, trading with both the west and east. Lauder is unlikely to succeed in doing so, if he even wants to, though he is probably more open to such an idea than the Biden administration. After all, Lauder has deep business ties in both Ukraine and Russia.

Lauder, an outspoken Zionist, has also always supported Israel’s rightwing Likud party. In 1998, Netanyahu asked Lauder to engage Syrian leader Hafez Al-Assad in informal diplomacy. Lauder played a major role in Israeli-Syrian relations, coming up with the draft ‘Treaty of Peace Between Israel and Syria’ that was important in the (fruitless) 2000 negotiations between the countries in the US state of Virginia.

Despite his old age, Lauder continues to conduct backchannel diplomacy. In September 2025, he met with Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in New York. The Jerusalem Post wrote that the two discussed how to overcome stalled Syrian-Israeli negotiations.

In short, Lauder is a lifelong operator in very sensitive areas. The news that he is to take charge of a Ukrainian deposit probably has diplomatic implications ranging beyond Ukraine. Perhaps Trump may hope to use Lauder’s Ukrainian connections to build relationships with Ukrainian businessmen possessing Russian connections, and with Russian businessmen themselves?

Lauder already boasts excellent connections with Russia. In 2016, he even met with Putin directly.

It was Lauder’s decades-old Ukrainian-Russian business partner, Aleksandr Rodnyansky, who organized the ill-fated March 2022 Russia-Ukraine negotiations along with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Years since, Ukraine and Russia have still never come so close to signing a deal.

Now, let’s take a closer look at Ron Lauder and his many relationships with key figures in Ukraine — and Russia. The depth of Lauder’s closeness to Zelensky may indicate that the sitting Ukrainian president still has many years of rule left in him.

After all, his old boss is not just back in town, but is also very close with the US president!

Lauder and Ukraine

Lauder’s involvement with Ukraine started in the late 1990s, when he became one of the co-founders of the media group that the young comedian Zelensky would soon work for, 1+1. By 2019, 1+1 would make Zelensky president.

No wonder Lauder was so interested in Eastern European and Israeli media assets in the 90s and 2000s. Media is an excellent asset for a globe-trotting backchannel diplomat like Lauder. The story of Lauder’s connections in Ukraine involves a dizzying array of the country’s most powerful men, men straddling every geopolitical divide imaginable, every shade on the NATO-Kremlin spectrum.

In short, it’s no wonder that Trump’s man in Ukraine is Ronald Lauder.

It all started in 1997.