‘Security shield’: US hands Zelensky draft deal on rare minerals

Kyiv: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says a minerals deal between Kyiv and Washington will provide Ukraine with a post-war “security shield”, and President Volodmyr Zelensky says he hopes to reach an agreement within days.

Bessent, the first cabinet-level official on President Donald Trump’s team to visit Kyiv, spoke after Zelensky said he was ready to do a deal to open mineral resources to US investment, as he vies for the US president’s backing in the war against Russia.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting with US Treasury Secretary (unseen) in Kyiv to discuss a rare-minerals-for-security deal.Credit: Bloomberg

Trump, who wants a rapid end to the war but has not made clear if he would continue vital military aid to Kyiv, has said he wants $US500 billion ($796 billion) in rare earth minerals from Ukraine and that Washington’s support needed to be “secured”.

He told Fox News he needed rare minerals – which that are crucial for high-tech products in exchange for American military aid. The idea is said to have come from Ukraine itself, to appeal to Trump’s business-first approach.

Zelensky told reporters the US had presented Ukraine with a first draft agreement, which Kyiv would now study, and that he hoped they could seal a deal at the February 14-16 Munich Security Conference.

“We had a productive, constructive conversation. For me, the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine is very important, and we talked about minerals in general,” said Zelensky, who is expected to meet US Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talks to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as he presents a draft agreement on natural resources to Ukraine in Kyiv.Credit: AP

Bessent said the minerals deal was part of a “larger peace deal that Trump has in mind”, adding that his first visit to Ukraine showed that the war was a top priority for the Trump administration.

“By increasing our economic commitment through a partnership with the government and people of Ukraine, that will provide – once this conflict is over – it will provide a long-term security shield for all Ukrainians,” Bessent said.

Though firm details are still unclear, Ukrainians are watching nervously at how the Trump team has been engaging with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Not long after the conclusion of the joint news conference, Trump wrote on social media that he had had a “lengthy and productive phone call” with Putin to discuss ending the war.

Zelensky has emphasised throughout the war that Ukraine needs its Western allies to provide it with security guarantees that would prevent Russia from using any break in the fighting to regroup and launch another invasion.

Zelensky said at the news conference that he could only discuss the subject of US security guarantees for Ukraine with Trump directly.

Pre-dawn missile strike

Bessent’s visit came hours after Kyiv’s residents were awoken by a pre-dawn Russian ballistic missile attack that killed one person in the city.

On Wednesday, natural gas production sites owned by Ukraine’s state-run energy firm Naftogaz were damaged in a Russian strike on the central Poltava region, prompting Ukraine to ask allies to increase the supply of imported gas. Russia, which has previously focused its missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian electricity sector, has in recent months sharply stepped up attacks on Ukrainian gas storage facilities and production fields. A Russian strike on a residential building in Poltava killed at least seven people, including three children.

Workers lower into graves the coffins of Kateryna Zapishnya, 38, Diana Zapishnya, 12, Danyil Zapishnyi, 8, and Serhii Zapishnyi, 40, who were killed on February 1 by a Russian strike on a residential building in Poltava, Ukraine.Credit: AP

Ukraine’s underground gas storage facilities are located in the west of the country, while the main production capacity is in the east, in the frontline Kharkiv region, as well as in the Poltava region.

The prospective minerals deal shows how Ukraine has rapidly reset its foreign policy approach to align with the transactional world view set out by the new occupant of the White House, Ukraine’s most important wartime ally.

Trump’s decision to send his Treasury secretary before any other official was striking in a wartime capital that has been a revolving door for Western security, defence and political officials over almost three years of war.

Bessent has said he supported ratcheting up sanctions on Russia’s oil sector, a move begun by the Biden administration shortly before leaving office.

On Monday, Russia’s point man for relations with the US said that all of Putin’s conditions must be met in full before the war in Ukraine could end.

Those conditions include Ukraine dropping its NATO ambitions and withdrawing its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia, something Kyiv has likened to capitulation.

Reuters

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