Giant, pointed mounds of soil form ridges around huge frozen ponds across a vast landscape of sandy earth and enormous craters. As if borrowed from the set of Star Wars, a colossal rectangular metal box, fitted with a long metallic arm, chain and gigantic scoop, gouges out chunks of land from one of the sprawling cavities, the arm swinging back and forth to empty its load on to another mini mountain of dirt. This is one of Ukraine's open-pit titanium mines - a natural resource Donald Trump may well be after as he prepares to sign a deal with Kyiv to access Ukrainian minerals, rare earth and other raw materials.