KYIV and LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday that Ukraine has been working on a “preliminary framework” for a minerals sharing deal with the U.S., but again warned that no agreement can succeed without sufficient Western security guarantees.
“Without future security guarantees, we will not have a real ceasefire,” Zelenskyy said. “And if we don’t have it nothing will work. Nothing will work.”
The president told ABC News that Trump will face a “lot to challenges” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It is very difficult really. I understand President Trump wants to do it quickly.”
“But this is not dialogue with somebody,” Zelenskyy added. “He will have a lot of challenges with Putin, because he doesn’t want to end the war.”
“The most important is to end the war yesterday,” the president continued. “We need to focus to get peace without any possibility to get back to the war. That is why we are focusing on just peace and lasting. This is more important than weeks. Of course we want within days.”
Zelensky also said he is ready to be “flexible” about security guarantees, suggesting the U.S. didn’t need to be at the center of them but could contribute alongside other countries. The president added that he wants to ask Trump if the U.S. might stop American military aid in the future. For now, he said, there is no freeze in aid.
Zelenskyy stressed that any minerals deal cannot put Ukraine in debt for previous wartime American grants. That would open a “Pandora’s box,” he said, allowing other nations to demand repayments.
A Ukrainian official described to ABC News details of a potential U.S.-Ukraine mineral deal, sharing points that appear to suggest Kyiv has succeeded in significantly improving the terms, perhaps staring down some of the Trump administration’s more onerous demands.
The $500 billion demanded by Trump no longer features in the draft, a Ukrainian official told ABC News. The fund that Ukraine will pay into is also no longer going to be 100% U.S. owned, the official said.
The two countries have agreed to a deal relating to critical minerals and other resources, a senior Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump did not confirm the U.S. had agreed, instead saying he had heard that Zelenskyy will visit Washington, D.C., to finalize the deal on Friday and that “it’s OK with me if he’d like to.”
