By Olena Harmash, Tom Balmforth and Yuliia Dysa
KYIV (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would be coming to Washington on Friday to sign an agreement on rare earth minerals and Zelenskiy said its success would depend on the outcome of their discussions.
The deal, under which Kyiv would hand some revenue from its mineral resources to a fund jointly controlled by the U.S., is central to Ukrainian attempts to win strong support from Trump as he seeks a quick end to Russia’s war, with U.S.-Russian talks that have so far excluded Kyiv set to continue on Thursday.
Trump confirmed Zelenskiy would visit Washington on Friday to sign the agreement on rare earths and other topics but suggested the United States would not be making far-reaching security guarantees.
Kyiv has been seeking U.S. security guarantees as part of the deal, cast by Trump as a payment for U.S. aid to Kyiv during the war.
“I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond – very much. We’re going to have Europe do that,” Trump said, without elaborating.
Zelenskiy said the most important thing was that the current draft did not portray Ukraine as a debtor that would have to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars for past military assistance.
“This agreement could be part of future security guarantees… an agreement is an agreement, but we need to understand the broader vision,” he said in Kyiv.
“This deal could be a great success or it could pass quietly. And the big success depends on our conversation with President Trump.”
He said it would be a success if the U.S. becomes a provider of security guarantees for Ukraine, which wants protection from future Russian attacks if a peace deal is reached.
Fighting has continued in Ukraine during the flurry of diplomacy, with Ukraine frequently coming under attack from Russian missiles and drones in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.
QUESTIONS OVER WASHINGTON TRIP
Trump said on Tuesday that Zelenskiy wanted to come to Washington on Friday to sign a “very big deal”.
Zelenskiy said both sides were still working on organising the visit and a White House official on Wednesday raised doubts about whether the visit would go ahead, but Trump later said again that Zelenskiy would visit on Friday.
Trump has been fiercely critical of Zelenskiy as he upended U.S. policy on the war, calling him a “dictator” and ending a campaign to isolate Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 12 and a Russian-U.S. meeting took place in Saudi Arabia on February 18.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian and U.S. diplomats would meet in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss resolving bilateral disputes that are part of a wider dialogue the sides see as crucial to ending the Ukraine war.
Lavrov again ruled out “any options” for European peacekeepers being sent to Ukraine although Trump has said some form of peacekeeping troops are needed in Ukraine if an agreement to end the conflict is struck.
“Nobody has asked us about this,” Lavrov said during a visit to Qatar.
‘PRELIMINARY’ AGREEMENT
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Washington would commit to supporting Kyiv’s efforts to obtain security guarantees under the finalised deal, though the Americans offered no security pledges of their own.
Shmyhal said Ukraine’s government was giving its approval to the agreed wording so that it could be signed. He described it as a “preliminary” agreement.
“After the Ukrainian president and the U.S. president agree on security guarantees, agree on how we tie this preliminary agreement to security guarantees from the United States for our country, in the presence of (both) presidents, a representative of the Ukrainian government will sign this preliminary agreement,” he said.
In a comment aimed at calming the fears of worried Ukrainians, Shmyhal said Ukraine would never “sign or consider … a colonial treaty that did not take into account the interests of the state.”
A copy of a draft agreement, seen by Reuters and dated February 25, said: “The Government of the United States of America supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace.”
Shmyhal, outlining the agreement in televised comments, said Kyiv would contribute 50% of “all proceeds received from the future monetisation of all relevant state-owned natural resource assets and relevant infrastructure.”
Those proceeds would go into a fund under the joint control of the United States and Ukraine, he said, adding that no decision about the governance of the fund could be taken without Kyiv’s agreement.
“Already existing deposits, facilities, licenses and rents are not subject to discussion when creating this fund,” he added.
(Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicut in Washington; writing by Timothy Heritage; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
