Trump says Zelenskyy wants to sign minerals deal in U.S., as reports suggest draft agreement reached

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to come to Washington later this week to sign a critical minerals deal that is central to Kyiv’s push to win ongoing U.S. support of its war with Russia.

Multiple reports emerged Tuesday that the U.S. and Ukraine had agreed on the terms of a draft agreement on the minerals issue, which Trump has pushed Kyiv to move forward on.

It was not immediately clear whether the agreement carries any specific U.S. security guarantees that Ukraine had sought or if Washington has committed to sending additional military aid.

Trump also told reporters there needs be some form of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine if an agreement to end the conflict is struck.

Russia frowns on European peacekeepers

The U.S. leader had told reporters on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a deal to end the conflict. A day later, the Kremlin denied that was the case.

Asked about Trump’s comment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refrained from publicly contradicting the U.S. president, but effectively reaffirmed Russia’s opposition to the idea.

“There is a position on this matter that was expressed by the Russian Foreign Minister, [Sergei] Lavrov. I have nothing to add to this and nothing to comment on. I leave this without comment,” said Peskov.

Russia has repeatedly said it opposes having NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine, with Lavrov saying last week that Moscow would view that as a “direct threat” to Russia’s sovereignty, even if the troops operated there under a different flag.

Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, did not respond directly to the Kremlin’s latest comment, saying the Trump administration would continue to work with Moscow and Kyiv to end the war.

“President Trump’s commitment to achieving an end to this brutal, bloody war and then establishing the framework for a lasting peace will not be negotiated through the media,” Hughes said.

“The Trump administration knows that sustaining peace requires Europe to do more, and we have heard leaders like [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron and British Prime Minister [Keir] Starmer — as well as others — offer to do just that. We continue to work with Russia and Ukraine for peace because you can’t end a war without talking to both sides.”

Calls from Trump for war to end

Prior to re-entering the White House, Trump repeatedly claimed he’d be able to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours.

A month after returning to power, Trump still hasn’t brought an end to war.

However, his administration has begun turning sharply from prior U.S. policy, with Trump ending the isolation of Putin, having a conversation with the Russian leader, and then deciding to hold talks with Russia on ending the war. 

Ukraine was informed of Trump’s course of action after the fact. It was also left out of talks the U.S. held with Russia in Saudi Arabia last week.

More recently, Trump has publicly feuded with Zelenskyy, accusing the Ukrainian leader of being a “dictator without elections,” a reference to the fact that Ukrainian elections have been delayed as a result of the all-out war. Zelenskyy has in turn suggested that Trump is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, an act that has locked the two nations in a state of all-out war ever since.

The war has left thousands of civilians dead in Ukraine, while displacing millions of its citizens. More than 200,000 structures have reportedly been destroyed amid three years of fighting.

But Ukraine has also brought the war to Russian soil, including through the seizure of a swath of Russia’s Kursk oblast, which Moscow has yet to fully reclaim. Ukraine has also undertaken an ongoing campaign to make strikes on infrastructure deep inside Russian territory using long-range drones.

Amid Trump’s push to bring the war to an end promptly, some observers have raised concerns about what could happen if that process ends up being too favourable to Russia.

“Nobody wants war. Nobody wants killing. Everybody wants peace, of course,” said Leigh Turner, a former U.K. ambassador to Ukraine, when speaking to Times Radio.

But he sees “a big difference” between an outcome that would allow Russia to keep Ukrainian land it has seized and to put other limits on Ukraine, versus a peace which “constrains… and which punishes” Russia for having started the war. 

Turner predicts that if Russia gets what it wants in a peace deal, it will likely attack Ukraine again, and that like-minded leaders will be encouraged to pursue territorial conquests of their own.