The US President Donald Trump spoke with Putin by phone.
He told this to the New York Post.
According to Trump, Putin allegedly "wants people to stop dying".
The American president said he has a concrete plan to end the war and wants to make a $500 billion deal with Volodymyr Zelensky for access to rare earth minerals and gas in Ukraine in exchange for security guarantees in a potential peace deal.
The US Vice President JD Vance will meet with the Ukrainian president at the Munich Security Conference next week. At the same time, Trump announced a possible meeting with Zelensky in Washington next week.
This is likely Trumpʼs first conversation with Putin since his victory in the US election on November 5, 2024. WP wrote in November that they had a telephone conversation back then, but Russian spokesman Dmitrii Peskov denied this.
At the same time, the publication noted that Ukraine was informed about this call in advance, but a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated that Kyiv knew nothing about it.
In late December, Putin personally denied having spoken to Trump. At the same time, he said that he was ready to meet. Donald Trump said on January 10 that his meeting with Putin was already being prepared. At that time, he did not name any specific dates for a possible meeting.
Reuters, citing sources, wrote that Russia is considering Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as possible locations for talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Trumpʼs plans for war in Ukraine
During the election campaign, Trump claimed that he could end the war in Ukraine “in one day”. However, after being elected president, his narratives changed. The American newspaper The Wall Street Journal wrote that he instructed special envoy Keith Kellogg to end the war in 100 days.
Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly stressed that the state will defend its integrity and will not cede its territories to Russia. In September 2024, Zelensky met with Donald Trump and presented him with a victory plan. According to the Ukrainian leader, the meeting was very meaningful.
New US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that under Donald Trumpʼs presidency, ending the Russian-Ukrainian war will be the official policy of the United States. He said that he could not give a specific date for the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine, but both sides will have to make some concessions because they will not be able to achieve their maximum goals.
And Trump himself, two days after his inauguration, called on Putin to end the war — otherwise he would impose large taxes and sanctions.
Zelensky said he likes Trumpʼs tactics for ending hostilities. However, he stressed that Trump and Putinʼs talks about a war without Ukraine are dangerous for everyone.
What rare earth materials are we talking about?
On February 3, the US President Donald Trump said he was considering exchanging Ukrainian rare earth minerals for more American aid.
"Weʼre looking to make a deal with Ukraine where theyʼre going to provide what weʼre giving them with their rare earth minerals and other things," Trump said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the country is open to cooperation.
These minerals are needed to make smartphones, batteries, magnets, lasers, and other modern technologies. Although they are called rare earths, they are actually not that rare, but they are difficult to extract and purify. These include lithium, graphite, uranium, and titanium.
- In the fall of 2024, Volodymyr Zelensky presented a plan for Ukraineʼs victory over Russia. The plan contains five points. The fourth of them, the economic one, proposes concluding an agreement "on the joint protection of critical resources available in Ukraine, joint investment and use". Among such resources, the president named uranium, titanium, graphite and lithium, and estimated their value at "trillions of dollars".
- Babel asked two experts to explain the basics of this topic: journalist Volodymyr Boyko, founder of the publication nadra.info, and Doctor of Geological Sciences Natalia Bariatska, an expert of the State Commission of Ukraine on Mineral Resources.
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