KDRTV News -In an unprecedented turn of event, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday to sign an agreement on sharing his country’s mineral resources, Trump has said.
What started like a simplistic foreign policy gist has now been actualized by President Donald Trump’s allure for U.S’s appetite for precious minerals for protection from their aggressive neighbor that has been advancing and capturing large swathes of land onto the Ukrainian territory.
What started as a mere rhetoric and threats has now made the Ukrainian people to live under fear from the Russian invasion that started over 3 years ago. Initially Russia had already carved for itself the Crimea region which is a vast mineral reach and a vantage point to the sea that’s used as an international docking for large ships that carry steel and grains from Ukraine to different parts of the world.
President Donald Trump a few days ago accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of paralyzing the peace negotiations and went ahead to call him a dictator who is fearing an election and really a terrible dictator.
Speaking at a meeting of his cabinet on Wednesday, Trump said the presence of American workers extracting rare earth metals on Ukrainian soil would provide “automatic security” for Ukraine.
He said Kyiv should “forget about” joining Nato and repeated Russia’s claims that the issue was one of the driving factors behind the war.
The US president suggested a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia was not far off, telling reporters: “We’re going to make a deal with Russia and Ukraine to stop killing people.”
But Zelensky said without security guarantees “we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing”.
“I want to find a Nato path or something similar,” he said.
What are the terms of the deal?
Key details have not yet been made public, but on Wednesday Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukraine and the US had finalised a version of the agreement.
Speaking to Ukrainian TV, Shmyhal said the preliminary agreement envisages that an “investment fund” would be set up for Ukraine’s reconstruction.
Kyiv and Washington would manage the fund on “equal terms”, the prime minister added.
He said Ukraine would contribute 50% of future proceeds from state-owned mineral resources, oil and gas to the fund, and the fund would then invest in projects in Ukraine itself.
Zelensky has acknowledged the fund but told the BBC on Wednesday it was “too early to talk about money”.
The New York Times reported, citing a draft document, that the US would own the maximum amount of the fund allowed under US law, but not necessarily all of it.
Disagreement over the terms of a minerals deal formed part of what was seen as a deepening rift between Trump and Zelensky in recent weeks.
The Ukrainian president had rejected an initial request from the US for $500bn (£395bn) in mineral wealth, but media reports say this demand has now been dropped.
“The provisions of the deal are much better for Ukraine now,” a source in Ukraine’s government told the BBC.
On Tuesday, Trump said the US had given Ukraine between $300bn (£237bn) and $350bn (£276bn) in aid, and that he wanted to “get that money back” through a deal.
But German think tank the Kiel Institute estimates the US has sent $119bn in aid to Ukraine.
What Does the deal include?
Zelensky has been pushing for a deal to include a firm security guarantee from the US.
But on Wednesday, Ukraine’s leader said no such guarantee had been made.
“I wanted to have a sentence on security guarantees for Ukraine, and it’s important that it’s there,” he said.
Asked by the BBC if he would be prepared to walk away from the agreement if Trump did not offer the guarantees he wanted, Zelensky said: “I want to find a Nato path or something similar.
“If we don’t get security guarantees, we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing.”
Despite this, Shmyhal said on Wednesday the US supported “Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees to build lasting peace”.
He said Ukraine would not sign the deal until Zelensky and Trump “agree on security guarantees” and decide on how to “tie this preliminary agreement” to a US security guarantee.
Trump said on Wednesday that the US would not provide security guarantees “beyond… very much”, saying responsibility for this fell to Europe.
But he added that the presence of American workers on Ukrainian soil would provide “automatic security”.
The prospect of a minerals deal was first proposed by Zelensky last year as a way to offer the US a tangible reason to continue supporting Ukraine.
Trump said on Tuesday that Ukraine would get “the right to fight on” in return for access to its minerals and suggested the US would continue to supply equipment and ammunition “until we have a deal with Russia”.
The US president has also said Russia is open to accepting European peacekeepers in Ukraine, but Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin would not consider this as an option.
Russia has consistently opposed the idea of Ukraine becoming a member, fearing it would bring Nato forces too close to its borders.
In 2008, the alliance had said that Ukraine could eventually join.
Trump has suggested European peacekeeping troops could be stationed in Ukraine as part of a ceasefire deal, but Russia says it is against this.
European representatives, however, were not included in Washington’s initial talks with Russia.
President Donald Trump was hard pressed by Journalists to verify his earlier hard hitting lacing of President Zelensky as being a dictator but he claimed that he’s never said anything to that effect and if he surely did that must have been a big mistake.
