KYIV (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday his team spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser and his top envoy on the war in Ukraine this week, and that they were working to arrange a visit by a U.S. delegation.
Kyiv has been trying to establish close relations with the new administration of Trump, who has said he wants to bring a quick end to the nearly three-year-old war with Russia.
“We already have working dates when the American team will arrive. Now the dates and members of the delegation are being agreed upon, and we are waiting for the team. We will work together,” he told a press briefing.
He said his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, had spoken with Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and that his team had spoken to Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, the day before.
In a readout of the call with Waltz, Yermak said he had spoken about the situation on the battlefield and progress with the mobilisation to replenish Ukrainian manpower.
The Ukrainian readout said they also discussed the need to organise personal contacts between Zelenskiy and Trump.
Trump has given away few clues as to how he will seek to settle the war in Ukraine.
He said on Monday that he wanted Kyiv to supply the United States with rare earth and other resources in exchange for financially supporting Ukraine’s war efforts.
The call appeared to be a reference to part of a “victory plan” presented by Zelenskiy to his allies. The plan explicitly invited allies to participate in developing the country’s critical resources.
Responding to Trump’s comments, Zelenskiy told reporters at a briefing in Kyiv that: “I talked about this back in September, when we had a meeting with President Trump.”
He said Ukraine was open to investment from allies who were helping it in the war.
“We are open to the fact that all of this can be developed with our partners, who are helping us to defend our land and pushing the enemy back with their weapons, their presence, and sanctions packages. And this is absolutely just”.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, writing by Yuliia Dysa, Editing by Alex Richardson and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
