Trump
says no significant security guarantees in Ukraine minerals deal
President
says Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit White House to sign ‘very big agreement’,
but details remain unclear
Pjotr Sauer,
and Andrew Roth in Washington
Wed 26 Feb
2025 13.41 EST
Donald Trump
has announced that Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit the White House on Friday to
sign a rare earth minerals deal, but the US will not provide significant
security guarantees to Ukraine as part of the agreement.
The
conclusion of a deal, which Trump has claimed would allow the US to recoup
hundreds of billions of dollars it spent on military aid to Kyiv, followed days
of intense negotiations in which Zelenskyy said he wanted the US to guarantee
Ukraine’s security against the ongoing Russian invasion.
Uncertainty
remains over the specifics of the agreement, which would establish a joint fund
between the US and Ukraine that would receive revenues from the mining of rare
earth metals and other precious minerals in Ukraine, as well as some oil and
gas revenues.
Trump
announced during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he could confirm that
Zelenskyy would arrive in Washington on Friday to sign the deal, calling it a
“very big agreement that will be on rare earth and other things”.
Zelenskyy
had resisted pressure from the US to sign a draft of the deal at the Munich
Security Conference earlier this month that would have established a joint fund
100% owned by the US, according to media reports. “I will not sign what 10
generations of Ukrainians will have to pay back,” he said at a news conference
on Sunday.
Since then,
negotiators had gone back and forth over the specifics of the joint venture,
while Ukraine pushed for more specific language about long-term US support for
Ukrainian sovereignty.
Trump, when
asked about the specific guarantees he would provide to Ukraine as part of the
deal, said: “Well I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much.
We’re going to have Europe do that.”
He brushed
aside Ukraine’s aspiration to join Nato, repeating a Russian talking point that
the issue triggered the war. “Nato you can forget about,” Trump said. “I think
that’s probably the reason the whole thing started.”
Media
reports suggested the draft contained only vague language on security
guarantees.
Zelenskyy
described the deal as “preliminary”, adding that it was “just a start, a
framework, it can be a big success”.
The
Ukrainian leader said that if he visited the White House on Friday, he would be
“very direct” in asking whether the US would continue supporting Ukraine or
not. “If we don’t get security guarantees, we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing
will work, nothing,” he said.
Zelenskyy’s
comments came after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, reinforced
Moscow’s rejection of the idea of European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine,
contradicting Trump’s claims earlier this week that Vladimir Putin supported
the presence of western forces on the ground.
“Trump said
that a decision on the deployment of peacekeeping forces would only be possible
with the consent of both sides, apparently referring to us and Ukraine. Nobody
has asked us about this,” Lavrov said.
European
leaders are due to meet in London on Sunday to discuss defence and security
issues, including a proposal to deploy European troops to Ukraine after a
ceasefire is reached, aiming to deter further Russian aggression.
Under one of
the proposals, supported by the UK and France, there would be fewer than 30,000
European troops on the ground in Ukraine, away from the frontline at key
infrastructure sites such as nuclear power plants, backed by western air and
sea power.
Lavrov said
the peacekeeping proposals coming from London and Paris were a “deceit” aimed
at pumping Ukraine full of more weapons, and would draw Ukraine further into
Nato’s sphere and infringe on the rights of Russian speakers there.
On Thursday,
Russian and US diplomats will meet in Istanbul to discuss improving diplomatic
relations. It will mark the second consecutive week of meetings between
Washington and Moscow, after last week’s discussions in Saudi Arabia,
signalling a thaw in relations under the Trump administration.
The US
secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said in Riyadh last week that the two
countries would work to restore their diplomatic missions in Washington and
Moscow as part of negotiations towards ending the conflict in Ukraine. Moscow
has had no ambassador in Washington since the previous envoy, Anatoly Antonov,
left his post last October.
On Tuesday,
when confronted by journalists about Moscow’s rejection of peacekeeping troops,
Trump said he believed that “ultimately, we’ll be able to agree on something,
I’m sure”.
He said:
“Something will be done that’s going to be satisfactory to everybody … It’s
actually something I did discuss. A form of peacekeeping that’s acceptable to
everybody.”
Moscow’s
continued resistance to European peacekeeping forces – seen by Ukraine as the
only viable alternative to Nato membership for guaranteeing its security – is
the latest sign of its reluctance to align with Trump’s efforts to swiftly end
the war, raising questions about Washington’s ability to persuade Putin to
compromise on some of his sweeping demands regarding Ukraine.
Two sources
familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking told the Guardian that Putin remained
committed to his sweeping conditions for signing any peace deal, which include
limiting the size of Kyiv’s military, prohibiting foreign weapons on Ukrainian
soil, ensuring Ukraine’s permanent neutrality, and maintaining influence over
its political future.
Lavrov
reiterated that Moscow still sought full control over the four Ukrainian
regions it illegally annexed, despite not fully occupying all of their
territory.
He also
signalled that Moscow would insist on having a say over Ukraine’s political
direction, suggesting that Russia sought a settlement that would make the
remaining Ukrainian-controlled territory less hostile to Russia and Russian
speakers. “What remains of Ukraine must also be freed from racist laws,” Lavrov
said.
The Kremlin
has long alleged that Ukraine’s government persecutes ethnic Russians and
Russian-speaking citizens. This claim, bolstered by false narratives, served as
a pretext for its unprovoked full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine has
repeatedly denied Russian assertions it has repressed ethnic Russians and
Russian speakers on its territory.
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