The US President Donald Trump said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to abandon the agreement on Ukrainian subsoil.
He said this on board his plane Air Force One.
And he added that if Zelensky does this, he will "face big problems", without specifying what exactly he meant.
"Heʼs trying to walk away from the rare earths deal, and if he does that, heʼs going to have problems, big, big problems," Trump told reporters.
According to him, Zelensky wants Ukraine to become a member of NATO, "but he will never become a member of NATO. He understands this".
The United States is proposing a new deal on Ukrainian minerals, as well as oil and gas, without offering security guarantees in return. The Financial Times, which has seen the draft agreement, writes that Washington is aggressively expanding its demands. In Kyiv, they believe that this could undermine Ukraineʼs sovereignty, divert profits abroad and deepen the countryʼs dependence on the United States.
However, Kyiv will ask to change the agreement, demanding in return an increase in the volume of American investments.
What preceded
The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brought a pilot draft of a minerals agreement to Ukraine on February 12. Washington hoped that Kyiv would sign it immediately. However, President Zelensky said that he had banned the signing of the agreement because it would not protect Ukraine’s interests — it had no connection to investments, profits, or security guarantees. After that, they began to refine it.
The final agreement was supposed to be signed on February 28, during Volodymyr Zelenskyʼs visit to the White House. However, then Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president had a falling out — the Ukrainian delegation left the White House early. The document was not signed. However, both sides stated that negotiations on the agreement were ongoing.
After that, CBS News wrote that Trump is pushing for a “bigger, better deal” with Ukraine on rare earths. The publication’s sources noted that the version of the agreement that was brought to the United States is not final — some of its points may change.
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