Donald Trump: Ukraine ‘may be Russian some day’

Donald Trump has made comments that will be music to Vladimir Putin’s ears but will cause shock to Ukraine as a possible peace deal looms.

Donald Trump has floated the idea that Ukraine “may be Russian some day”.

The US President’s musing would mean the almost three-year conflict would have been in vain for Kyiv and as many as 100,000 Ukrainian lives defending their nation wasted for nothing.

Mr Trump spoke days out from a meeting between Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky and US Vice President JD Vance who, in the past, has been lukewarm helping Ukraine.

Kyiv is keen for any negotiated end to the conflict to include a US backed security guarantee. Without it, Mr Zelensky fears Moscow will later attempt to overrun the country once more. However, that may not include troops on the ground.

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday evening, US time, Mr Trump reiterated his desire for a deal to be done quickly to end the war, but he put the onus on Kyiv.

“They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian some day, or they may not be Russian some day,” he said.

The US President’s matter of fact remarks, even if just off the cuff, will be music to the ears of The Kremlin, which has justified the bloodshed by questioning Ukraine’s legitimacy as a sovereign nation.

“The fact that a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia, and has already, is a fact,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week. There’s little to suggest a “significant part of Ukraine” does want to become Russian.

Ukrainians reacted with scorn to Mr Trump’s remarks.

“It is some kind of senile insanity,” Kyiv resident Daniil told AFP.

A Ukrainian soldier on a street in central Kyiv, who only gave the name Mykola, said of Mr Trump: “He can think anything and say anything, but Ukraine will never be Russia.”

US President Donald Trump has said Ukraine could be ‘Russian some day’. Picture: Mandel NGAN / AFP

Mr Trump also said that Ukraine had “essentially agreed” to a deal that would see its natural resources exploited by the US in return for aid.

“We are going to have all this money in there, and I say, I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion ($A800bn) worth of rare earth,” he said.

Mr Trump has said he will dispatch his Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to Kyiv to thrash out a deal over Ukraine’s valuable minerals which include uranium, titanium and lithium. Ukraine could hold 7 per cent of the world’s titanium, for instance.

However, some of those minerals are in land which is under Russian control and which Moscow is unlikely to give back to Kyiv.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin will be pleased Donald Trump is even raising the possibility Ukraine could get end up in Russian hands at some point. Picture: Kristina Kormilitsyna / POOL / AFP

Ukraine won’t ‘had over’ minerals to US

While Ukraine’s Mr Zelensky has said he is willing to discuss a partnership with the US, he added he wouldn’t “hand over” the nation’s resources.

“Ukraine is open to partnerships, but our resources are not something we simply hand over — even to our closest allies,” he said.

“Strategic co-operation must be mutually beneficial.”

Mr Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz was bullish about Washington getting its hands on Ukraine’s resources, however.

“We need to recoup those costs and that is going to be a partnership with the Ukrainians in terms of their rare earths, their natural resources and their oil and gas, and also buying ours,” he told US broadcaster NBC on Sunday.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference with the President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Kyiv on February 10, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Picture: Tetiana Dzhafarova / AFP

Mr Zelensky will meet Mr Vance at the Munich Security Conference later this week.

Mr Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg will also head to the event in Germany.

The conference brings together military leaders and the defence industry to discuss security issues. Russia will not be in attendance.

Expectations a peace deal to end the war are imminent have been tempered by the White House. But Munich will likely see some progress towards what one could look like.

Russia has long demanded that it have control over five Ukrainian regions in any peace deal, despite parts of four of them still being in Ukrainian hands.

Such a move would see Ukraine retreating from land it has never given up – of indeed recaptured – which would be fiercely pushed back on by Kyiv.

For its part, Kyiv has floated handing back the part of the Russian region of Kursk it controls in return for a similarly sized areas of Ukraine Russia is occupying.

Russia has also demanded Ukraine does not get any promises it will join the NATO defence alliance.

Donald Trump believes Russia’s war in Ukraine can be needed soon. Picture: 24th Mechanized Brigade of Ukrainian Armed Forces / AFP

US: ‘No troops in Ukraine’

If that were the case, Ukraine would want some kind of alternative guarantee in return that it would have military support from the West to keep Russia at bay.

But newly installed US defence secretary Pete Hesgeth has poured cold water on that including US troops in Ukraine.

“We are not sending US troops to Ukraine,” he said on Tuesday when visiting the US European military headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

The US is also unlikely to announce many fresh weapons shipments to Ukraine.

Mr Trump is not going to Munich but has suggested he would “probably” meet Mr Zelensky in the coming days.

That’s raised the possibility of Mr Zelensky flying from Munich to Washington DC.