The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had ordered his ministers not to sign an agreement proposed to give the United States access to minerals of the rare land of Ukraine because the document was too focused on interest Americans.
The proposal, which was a key element of Zelenskyy’s talks with the American vice-president JD Vance on the sidelines of the Munich security conference, did not offer any specific security guarantee in return, according to a current and an old top Ukrainian manager familiar with talks.
Zelenskyy’s decision not to accept the proposal, at least for the moment, has been described as “short -sighted” by a senior White House official.
“I did not let the ministers sign a relevant agreement because in my opinion, it is not ready to protect us, our interest,” Zelenskyy told the Associated Press on Saturday in Munich.
The proposal focused on the way in which the United States could use the Rare Terres of kyiv “as a remuneration” for the support already provided to Ukraine by the Biden administration and as payment for future aid, have Declared the senior current Ukrainian officials, speaking anonymously so that they can speak freely freely freely.
Zelenskyy insists on safety guarantees
Ukraine has large reserves of critical minerals that are used in aerospace, defense and nuclear industries. The Trump administration indicated that it wanted to access it to reduce dependence on China, but Zelenskyy said that any exploitation should be linked to security guarantees for Ukraine which would dissuade Russian Aggression Future .
“For me, this is very important the link between a kind of security guarantee and a kind of investment,” the Ukrainian president told AP.
Zelenskyy did not come into details on the reasons why he asked his officials not to sign the document, who was given to Ukrainian officials on Wednesday by the US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bassent during a visit to kyiv .
“It is a colonial agreement and Zelenskyy cannot sign it,” said the former senior official.
The spokesman for the National Security Council of the White House, Brian Hughes, did not explicitly confirm the offer, but said in a statement that “President Zelenskyy is short on the excellent opportunity that the Trump administration had presented to Ukraine ”.
Get daily national news
Get the best news of the day, the titles of political, economic and current affairs, delivered in your reception box once a day.
The Trump administration has tired of sending additional American aid to Ukraine and Hughes said that a mineral agreement would allow American taxpayers to “recover” the money sent to kyiv, while increasing the economy from Ukraine.
Hughes added that the White House believes that “the binding economic ties with the United States will be the best guarantee against future aggression and an integral part of lasting peace”. He added: “The United States recognizes it, the Russians recognize it, and the Ukrainians must recognize it.”
Ukrainians are concerned about securing the mineral sites of Russian attacks
US officials in discussions with their Ukrainian Munich counterparts were commercially and largely focused on the details of exploration of minerals and how to form a possible partnership to do this with Ukraine, said the senior official.
The potential value of deposits in Ukraine has not yet been discussed, with great attention or near the front line.
The American proposal apparently did not take into account the way in which the deposits would be provided in the event of continuous Russian aggression. The manager suggested that the United States had no “ready-to-use responses” to this question and that one of their dishes to remember from discussions in Munich will be how to guarantee any mineral extraction operation In Ukraine involving people and infrastructure.
Any agreement must comply with the Ukrainian law and acceptable to the Ukrainian people, said the senior Ukrainian official.
“The subsoil belongs to the Ukrainians under the Constitution,” said Kseniiia Orynchak, founder of the National Association of the Mining Industry of Ukraine, at the AP, suggesting that an agreement would need popular support.
Zelenskyy and Vance did not discuss the details of the American document at their meeting on Friday at the Munich conference, said the senior official. This meeting was “very good” and “substantial”, Vance clearly indicating that its main objective and Trump’s principal was to achieve a lasting and sustainable peace, said the senior official.
Zelenskyy told Vance that real peace demanded that Ukraine be in a “strong position” at the start of the negotiations, stressed that American negotiators should come to Ukraine and that the United States, Ukraine and the Europe had to be at the negotiating table for talks with Russia.
No Europeans at the negotiating table?
But General Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, almost cut Europeans from all Ukrainian-Russia talks, despite the request of Zelenskyy.
“You can ensure that the Ukrainians, the Russians and clearly the Americans of the table spoke,” Kellogg said at a event organized by a Ukrainian magnate at the Munich conference. Pressed if it meant that Europeans will not be included, he said: “I am a school of realism. I think that will not happen.
Ukraine is currently preparing a “counter-proposition” that will be delivered to the United States in “the near future,” said the official.
“I think it is important that the vice-president understood me that if we want to sign something, we must understand that it will work,” said Zelenskyy in the AP.
This means, he said, “it will bring money and security.”
– Press writers associated Aamer Madhani in Washington, DC, and Volodymyr Yurchuk and Susie Blann in kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
