Ukraine press accuses US officials of ‘blackmail’ during Munich trip to meet Zelensky
US officials have been hit by damning allegations that they held Ukraine to ransom over aid in its war against Russia.
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The United States has been accused of trying to intimidate Ukraine into signing over key resources in exchange for aid in its efforts to repel Russia’s invasion.
The “blackmail” allegation landed on Tuesday evening, Australian time. And it came as US officials, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia for preliminary talks aimed at ending the war.
There were no Ukrainian representatives at the meeting.
Mr Rubio and his opposite, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, committed to restart diplomatic relations between the US and Russia, which has been a pariah among Western countries since its invasion of Ukraine.
They also confirmed that the two nations would commence formal negotiations for a peace deal, though Russia has already laid out demands Ukraine would find unacceptable.
The Ukrainian government has accused the Trump administration of “appeasing” Russian dictator Vladimir Putin - who’s reportedly agreed to talk to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “if necessary”.
‘Blackmail’
Last night the Ukrainian publication Ukrainska Pravda, citing anonymous sources, reported that American delegates at the Munich Security Conference had pressured Ukraine to sign a mineral resources agreement, and had threatened to cancel Mr Zelensky’s meeting with Vice President J.D. Vance if he refused.
The unexpected delay in the Zelensky-Vance meeting allegedly stemmed from Washington’s insistence that Ukraine accept a “minerals-for-aid” agreement without modification.
The gist of it: Ukraine gives the US precious minerals in return for aid in the war.
The deal, first proposed by US President Donald Trump earlier this month, would grant the US a massive stake in Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and other critical resources.
A diplomatic mess ensued.
Pravda’s sources said US officials had rejected Ukraine’s proposed amendments to the deal, and took a hard-line stance: either sign it as drafted, or forgo the meeting with Mr Vance.
But when Kyiv refused to sign on America’s terms, the meeting went ahead anyway.
On Monday, Mr Zelensky confirmed that Mr Trump’s administration had proposed a deal that would give the US a 50 per cent stake in Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. But he made it clear he wasn’t willing to accept the terms as they stood.
“We are not just a raw material country, and this must be clearly stated in the document,” Mr Zelensky said.
Talks between US and Russia
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, the US and Russia met for about four hours of talks. Ukraine was not present.
According to Bloomberg, the two nations who were present agreed to work towards ending the war in Ukraine “as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all sides”.
And that included a “determination” to remove the economic sanctions imposed in both directions. Russia has, of course, been under quite severe sanctions since 2014, when Putin’s forces illegally seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and those sanctions were tightened even further when the Russians launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
In the words of Lavrov, which it must be said should not be trusted without question, the United States and Russia both expressed “great interest in removing artificial barriers to the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation”.\
The “artificial barriers” here are, of course, the sanctions.
Mr Rubio was accompanied, in the talks, by national security adviser Mike Waltz and Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Senior Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov joined Lavrov, alongside Saudi officials facilitating the discussions.
“Today is the first step of a long and difficult journey, but an important one,” Mr Rubio said following the meeting.
“There have to be concessions made by all sides. We’re not going to predetermine what those are.”
Mr Rubio insisted that “no one is being sidelined” after anger from Europe and Ukraine that they were not invited to the Riyadh talks.
“Everyone involved in that conflict has to be OK with (a deal),” he said.
Lavrov said it was “a very useful conversation”.
“We listened to each other, and we heard each other,” he said.
The US had conceded ground to Russia, perhaps accidentally, before the talks even began. Last week the man appointed Defence Secretary by Mr Trump, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, explicitly said that NATO membership for Ukraine was an unrealistic prospect - something Moscow would have otherwise used as a negotiating point.
Mr Hegseth rowed back his remarks the next day, but that was undermined somewhat when Mr Trump himself expressed support for his Defence Secretary’s original stance.
Lavrov laid out more demands during the meeting in Riyadh.
He rubbished the idea of placing a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine, even if the forces in question weren’t to technically represent NATO.
“Any appearance by armed forces under some other flag does not change anything. It is of course completely unacceptable,” said Lavrov.
In practice, the absence of peacekeeping forces would mean Ukraine having very little in the form of security guarantees. And Mr Zelensky’s government would have to be fearful of yet another Russian attack, once Putin’s forces reconstitute themselves.
Speaking from Turkey, a seemingly exasperated Mr Zelensky once again stressed that his nation had not been invited to the talks, and he raised concerns in Europe over Mr Trump’s recent comments, which the US President’s critics believe were too soft on Putin.
Talks “are taking place between representatives of Russia and representatives of the United States of America, about Ukraine, and without Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky said.
“We want everything to be fair so nobody decides anything behind our back.
“You cannot make decisions without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine.”
US State Department spokesman Tammy Bruce, another former Fox News personality, downplayed expectations, saying the talks were not about “moving forward in some kind of a negotiation”.
Both Russia and Ukraine remain unwilling to make territorial concessions, and while Mr Zelensky has expressed a willingness to meet Putin, he insists that Ukraine and its allies must first establish a united stance on ending the war.
Ukraine faces an increasingly uncertain future as Mr Trump continues to criticise US military aid to the country - a lifeline that has helped keep it intact.
For now, the Riyadh talks signal a shift in America’s approach — but how far Mr Trump is willing to go in reshaping US-Russia relations remains to be seen.
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