US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the United States and Ukraine had agreed to a draft critical minerals deal that, according to the president, could be worth about $1 trillion. The proposed deal is seen by many analysts as an attempt by Kyiv to win the support of the new US administration amid tensions over Washington’s outreach to Moscow to end the Ukraine war.
The apparent deal comes a week after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected an earlier draft. The Ukrainian leader had earlier aired his grievance against being left out of US-Russia talks to end the Ukraine war. On Wednesday, Zelenskyy described the agreement as a ramework economic deal, and said that so far, Kviv had not secured any security guarantees from the US.
In recent days, the public rift between Trump and Zelenskyy had escalated into a war of words, raising concerns in Kyiv and European capitals that Trump might rush through a deal with Moscow to end the war on Russia’s terms.
Here is what we know so far:
What do we know about the Ukraine minerals deal?
Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Tuesday that Zelenskyy wants to visit Washington on Friday to sign a “very big deal.”
“I hear that he is coming on Friday. Certainly, it’s OK with me if he would like to. And he would like to sign it together with me, and I understand that’s a big deal.”
Trump said the deal could be worth up to $1 trillion, and that American taxpayers would get their money back.
On Wednesday evening, Zelenskyy said that the agreement — which he said was an economic framework for cooperation with the US — did not, as of now, include any US security guarantees.
However, according to the Reuters news agency, the draft deal did say that the US wants Ukraine to be “free, sovereign and secure”. An earlier draft deal was rejected by Zelenskyy last week because it lacked details about security guarantees for Ukraine, according to media reports. The details of the draft deal have not been shared publicly.
On Monday, Zelenskyy said that he was ready to resign for the sake of peace but demanded that Kyiv should be granted membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a way to ensure his country’s security. But Washington has dubbed the NATO membership demand “unrealistic”.
“This is hugely significant, because certainly, according to the Ukrainians we’ve been speaking to all week, this [deal] is seen as a means for Donald Trump to basically get…