Occam’s razor would dictate that Russia is probably lying if they say they’re not interested in Ukrainian minerals, given that the Kremlin has lied about pretty much everything for a long time.

Putin is even saying he wants to sell minerals from Russian-occupied Ukraine to the US. Clearly he wants to profit from minerals in Ukraine.

Why do you think that what Russia says is true?

Russia said they didn’t poison Alexei Navalny in 2020, but they did. They said they didn’t kill Alexander Litvinenko, and they said they didn’t poison Sergei Skripal, but they did both of those things.