After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that the draft agreement with the United States on minerals is a "framework" whose success depends on Donald Trump and whether the US will provide guarantees to protect Ukraine's security, the US president indicated that he will not provide far-reaching security guarantees, but that Europe will do so.
Trump confirmed that Zelensky will visit Washington on Friday to sign the agreement.
“I’m not going to give any greater security guarantees… Europe will have to do that, because Europe is their neighbor,” Trump said. He added that the United States would work with Ukraine “on rare earth minerals.” “We need rare earths very much, and they have them in abundance,” Trump said. He also stressed that it was “a great deal for Ukraine, too, because it means we’re going to come in, we’re going to work there.”
The agreement, under which Kiev would direct a portion of its mineral resource revenues to a fund jointly controlled by the United States, is crucial to Ukraine's efforts to secure strong support from Trump as he seeks to quickly end the war with Russia.
Trump also said in a statement after a cabinet meeting yesterday that Ukraine could "forget" about joining NATO. "You can forget about it. That's probably why this all started," the US president told reporters.
When asked by reporters what he thought of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Trump said that "he's a very smart man, a very cunning person," and added that Putin had no intention of ending the war until he returned to the White House.
“If I hadn’t been elected, he would have continued to go through Ukraine,” he said. “Over a period of time, a lot of people would have been killed.” Asked whether Putin would have to make concessions in negotiations to end the war, Trump replied: “Yes, he will have to… He will be forced to.”
Negotiations between the United States and Russia, in which Kiev has not participated so far, are set to continue today in Istanbul, and according to reports, the agenda is not security issues or the war in Ukraine, but the establishment of diplomatic missions.
Zelensky stated earlier yesterday at a press conference that the most important thing is that the current draft agreement does not present Ukraine as a debtor who would have to repay hundreds of billions of dollars for previous military aid.
“This agreement can be part of future security guarantees… An agreement is an agreement, but we need to understand the broader vision,” he said in Kiev. “The agreement can be a great success or it can pass quietly. And a great success depends on our conversation with President Trump.”
He stressed that the agreement would be successful if the US became a security guarantor for Ukraine, which wants protection from future Russian attacks in the event of a peace deal.
Zelensky said both sides were working to arrange his visit on Friday to sign the agreement, after a tumultuous week during which Trump called him a dictator.
A copy of the agreement, seen by Reuters and dated February 25, does not contain specific security guarantees, but mentions Kiev's efforts to obtain them.
"The United States Government supports Ukraine's efforts to obtain the security guarantees necessary to establish lasting peace," the document states.
Earlier yesterday, a White House official expressed doubt whether an invitation to Zelensky for a meeting with Trump even makes sense, given Zelensky's statements that the minerals deal is not yet complete.
“If the Ukrainian leader says the deal is not finalized, I don’t see why the invitation would make sense,” the official told Reuters. “He is expected to confirm the final position (on the minerals deal) with his arrival, and he, by his own admission, has not yet taken a final position.”
The official said that Zelensky's latest statements indicate that the minerals agreement has not yet been finalized.
According to the text of the agreement, titled “Bilateral Agreement on Establishing Conditions for the Reconstruction Investment Fund,” Ukraine would contribute 50% of “all revenues generated from the future monetization of all relevant natural resources owned by the Ukrainian government.”
Zelensky said the exact amounts and investments would be defined in a separate agreement establishing the fund. According to the text of the agreement seen by Reuters, those revenues would be channeled into a fund jointly owned and managed by the United States and Ukraine.
The agreement does not specify exactly what resources are involved, but specifies that they would include deposits of minerals, oil, natural gas and other exploitable materials, as well as infrastructure such as LNG terminals and ports.
The list of these resources will be determined by a future agreement on the fund, while the document does not specify how much money would be generated for the US or in what timeframe.
Trump initially proposed the deal to help the US recover $500 billion in US war aid given to Ukraine in the form of grants, a figure that Kiev has fiercely opposed, claiming it far exceeds the actual US contribution.
"The main thing for me is that we are not debtors. There is no debt of $500 billion in the agreement, nor $350 billion, nor $100 billion, because that would be unfair," Zelensky said yesterday.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said that Washington would undertake to support Kiev's efforts to obtain security guarantees as part of the finalized agreement.
In a statement intended to calm worried Ukrainians, Shmygal stressed that Ukraine would never “sign or consider… a colonial agreement that does not take into account the interests of the state.”
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