(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would be coming to Washington on Friday to sign an agreement on rare earth minerals and Zelenskiy said its success would depend on the outcome of their discussions.
The deal, under which Kyiv would hand some revenue from its mineral resources to a fund jointly controlled by the U.S., is central to Ukrainian attempts to win strong support from Trump as he seeks a quick end to Russia’s war, with U.S.-Russian talks that have so far excluded Kyiv set to continue on Thursday.
Trump confirmed Zelenskiy would visit Washington on Friday to sign the agreement on rare earths and other topics but suggested the United States would not be making far-reaching security guarantees.
Kyiv has been seeking U.S. security guarantees as part of the deal, cast by Trump as a payment for U.S. aid to Kyiv during the war.
“I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond – very much. We’re going to have Europe do that,” Trump said, without elaborating.
Zelenskiy said the most important thing was that the current draft did not portray Ukraine as a debtor that would have to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars for past military assistance.
“This agreement could be part of future security guarantees… an agreement is an agreement, but we need to understand the broader vision,” he said in Kyiv.
“This deal could be a great success or it could pass quietly. And the big success depends on our conversation with President Trump.”
He said it would be a success if the U.S. becomes a provider of security guarantees for Ukraine, which wants protection from future Russian attacks if a peace deal is reached.
Fighting has continued in Ukraine during the flurry of diplomacy, with Ukraine frequently coming under attack from Russian missiles and drones in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.
Trump said on Tuesday that Zelenskiy wanted to come to Washington on Friday to sign a “very big deal“.
Zelenskiy said both sides were still working on organising the visit and a White House official on Wednesday raised doubts about whether the visit would go ahead, but Trump later said again that Zelenskiy would visit on Friday.
Trump has been fiercely critical of Zelenskiy as he upended U.S. policy on the war, calling him a “dictator” and ending a campaign to isolate Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 12 and a Russian-U.S. meeting took place in Saudi Arabia on February 18.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian and U.S. diplomats would meet in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss resolving bilateral disputes that are part of a wider dialogue the sides see as crucial to ending the Ukraine war.
