In Ukraine, a potential arms-for-minerals deal inspires hope and skepticism

KIROVOHRAD REGION, Ukraine (AP) — The mineral ilmenite is extracted from mounds of sand deep in the earth and refined using a method that summons the force of gravity, resulting in a substance that glimmers like a moonlit sky. Ukraine boasts vast reserves of ilmenite — a key element used to produce titanium — in the heavy mineral sands that stretch for miles along the country's embattled east. Much of it, as with all of Ukraine's critical minerals industry, is underdeveloped because of war as well as onerous state policies. That is poised to change if U.S. President Donald Trump’s…