The president of the United States, Donald Trump, received in the White House his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom he will sign an agreement on rare minerals, in the midst of the efforts to end the War of Russia in Ukraine.
The presidents of the United States, Donald Trump, and Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meet this Friday at the White House to sign an important agreement on minerals, while kyiv seeks to gather support from its greatest ally, as Washington gives a turn to his policy with Russia in an effort to end the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
The pact would grant the US substantial rights on Ukrainian rare land minerals, as a form of compensation for the weapons that sent him to The three -year war with Russia.
At a meeting with his cabinet on Wednesday, Trump confirmed the visit of Zelenskyy and assured that the agreement “brings us a great wealth”, but added that his first objective is to end the war, which he has killed and wounded several hundred thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.
“My second priority is that they return the money,” Trump said about the more than 100,000 million dollars in ammunition that Washington has sent to kyiv to support his fighters. “Without our equipment, that (war) would have ended very quickly.”
Trump also said he hopes to reach an agreement with Zelenskyy and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to end the fighting.
The American president began conversations with his Russian counterpart about the end of the conflict, but at the first meeting between the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Serguéi Lavrov, Ukrainian and European officials did not participate.
This worried European leaders, who traveled to kyiv to express their support to Zelenskyy on February 24, when three years of the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were completed.
A pact to recover key support
The planned agreement grants Washington the right to recover part of the billions of dollars in US armament costs supplied to kyiv, through an investment fund for reconstruction linked to the sale of Ukrainian minerals of rare earths.
The pact does not name the assets in question, but says that they would include mineral deposits, oil, natural gas and other removable materials, as well as other infrastructure such as LNG terminals and ports.
A report last year of the Center for Strategic and International Studies revealed that about two thirds of the money that Congress allocated to Ukraine spent in the United States.
Ukraine expects the agreement to get Trump to support kyiv's efforts to recover the territory taken by Russia. The agreement could also obtain the support of Republicans in Congress for a new round of help to the country devastated by war.
In recent weeks, Trump has issued strong criticism against Zelenskyy and urged him to accept the agreement on minerals. But on Thursday, during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, visiting Washington; He pointed out that he was looking forward to meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart and praised the Ukrainian military for his courage.
“We are working hard to put an end to that war. I think we have made many progress, and I think he is moving forward quite quickly,” Trump said.
Starmer said that he and Trump had discussed a plan to achieve a peace that is “hard and fair, that Ukraine helps to configure, to be backed by force to prevent Putin from returning for more.”
(With Reuters information)