The US and Ukraine are close to signing a minerals framework deal as soon as this week, after Kyiv said it secured a significant concession from the Trump administration not to factor in past military aid.
The latest development signals a significant step forward after a signing ceremony on an earlier version of the deal was cancelled in February following the public disagreement in the Oval Office between presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
After that dust-up, Trump insisted that billions of dollars of past US military assistance should be viewed as loans to be repaid through the agreement. Zelenskyy rejected that proposal.
“It was agreed that assistance provided prior to the signing of the agreement will not be counted towards it,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday night. A senior Ukrainian official said that could pave the way for the framework deal to be signed this week.
The breakthrough comes after Trump met Zelenskyy in the Vatican over the weekend, in what the US president described as a “beautiful meeting” and praised the Ukrainian leader for “doing a good job”. “I see him as calmer,” Trump added. “I think he understands the picture, and I think he wants to make a deal.”
Trump has also expressed deep frustration in recent days towards both Ukraine and Russia over what he perceives as the warring sides not wanting to make concessions to stop Europe’s largest war in 80 years.
“I was very disappointed that missiles were [launched] by Russia . . . I want [Putin] to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,” Trump told reporters on Sunday in a rare criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Critics have attacked Trump for being more critical of and piling more pressure on Kyiv than on Moscow.
On Monday, Putin declared a unilateral ceasefire on May 8-10 when Russia marks the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in the second world war.
The Kremlin said it was prepared to hold “peace talks without preliminary conditions to settle the initial reasons for the Ukrainian crisis”, a reference to Putin’s maximalist conditions for ending the war.
Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov hardened those conditions further by saying on Monday that Russia considered “international recognition” of its annexation of five Ukrainian regions to be an “imperative” for any deal.
Russia also wants a final agreement to include a ban on Kyiv joining Nato, and the “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine, Lavrov told Brazilian newspaper O Globo.
Moscow is also demanding that western countries revoke sanctions, return its $300bn in frozen central bank assets and give the Kremlin “reliable security guarantees” against “threats” from Nato and EU countries on its border, he added.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybiha questioned why Moscow needed to wait until May 8. “If Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately,” he said, reiterating Ukraine’s position that it is “ready to support a lasting, durable, and full ceasefire . . . for at least 30 days.”
Trump has viewed the so-called minerals deal to jointly exploit Ukraine’s rare earths and other natural resources as a way to recoup the billions of dollars’ worth of military aid sent to Kyiv under the administration of Joe Biden — and to pressure Zelenskyy towards broader peace negotiations.
The US pressure campaign has been evident since a few days before the Oval Office bust-up, when Treasury secretary Scott Bessent visited Kyiv and demanded that Zelenskyy sign the initial framework deal in his presence. The meeting devolved into a shouting match.
On Sunday, Shmyhal said he had held an “important meeting” with Bessent to hammer out final details.
“Legal teams are working on the document. We have made good progress,” he said, adding that Ukraine had clearly defined its “red lines”.
Senior Ukrainian officials had previously told the Financial Times that the US request to use proceeds from the minerals deal to repay past military assistance could have undermined their nation’s sovereignty, potentially scuppering Ukraine’s bid to join the EU and would not have been approved by the country’s parliament.
Many Ukrainian MPs, including some from Zelenskyy’s ruling party, have expressed concerns about the minerals deal and told the FT that they would not vote for a bad deal.
Senior Ukrainian officials told the FT that the framework deal being finalised applied to all mineral resources, including oil and gas, and major energy assets across the entire Ukrainian territory.
“The agreement must comply with European commitments and must not contradict Ukraine’s constitution and legislation,” Shmyhal said, suggesting that the new agreement was on track to address Kyiv’s concerns.
Kyiv and Washington signed a memorandum of intent this month, pledging to advance an agreement on the investment fund part of the deal on Ukraine’s natural resources and energy assets.
The negotiations have been so sensitive that Zelenskyy earlier this month ordered an investigation into the leak of the previous US proposal, which included the use of polygraph tests on government officials.
In a Fox News interview on Sunday, US national security adviser Mike Waltz said he was confident the deal “is going to get done”.
“The negotiators were working hard over the weekend,” he said, adding that Trump “is determined to make it so”.
