Unlock the White House Watch watch newsletter for free
Your guide on what the US elections of 2024 mean for Washington and Le Monde
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would sign a critical mineral agreement with the United States in “very short term” and that the war in Ukraine will end “soon”, although kyiv claims that several key points must still be agreed.
“Under Trump, this war will end and it will end soon,” Maryland’s conservative political action conference said on Friday. “He is the president of peace.”
Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy last week in an opening offer to end the war. He then sent senior American officials to meet Russian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, but Zelenskyy was not invited.
Washington has moved into the language of the language of an annual support declaration from the G7 to kyiv who depicts the Kremlin as an aggressor.
Ukraine has requested security guarantees from the United States, as well as Europe, to ensure that any hard and fair peace agreement, and will dissuade Russia from using an armistice to rest and reorganize, it making it possible to resume your invasion.
Waltz said Zelenskyy wanted to develop critical minerals with American investment and said the Ukrainian leader would accept an agreement with Washington, although he did not provide details on the conditions.
Zelenskyy rejected last week a proposal presented by the American secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent during a visit to kyiv, saying that it was not in the best interest of Ukraine as it is written.
The agreement proposed that the United States appropriated approximately 50% of the rights to the rare land of Ukraine and critical minerals in exchange for previous military assistance and did not contain any offer of future assistance.
High Ukrainian officials who saw the proposal told the FT that Bessent had demanded that Zelenskyy signs the agreement in his presence.
The officials said they had spent last week creating a counterpoppea, which they discussed with the American special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in kyiv on Thursday and Friday.
Zelenskyy said in an address Thursday evening after his first meeting with Kellogg that he “offered the fastest and most constructive way to obtain results”.
“Ukraine is ready for a strong and really effective agreement with the American president on investments and security,” he added.
“We have never said that we don’t want to sign [the deal]”Said a senior Ukrainian official. “They do not understand that the draft text cannot violate our constitution and, in fact, we help Trump conclude a real case.”
The manager added that kyiv was trying to negotiate a “solid agreement which does not violate our laws and our constitution and which guarantees investments and security”.
Officials knowing the ongoing negotiations said that the United States had presented an improved proposal but that both parties were still working on several points.
Zelenskyy’s rejection of the original American agreement and the War of Words which followed between him and Trump during last week raised concerns about the strategic partnership between the two nations and the US assistance Future, on which Ukraine is greatly based to repel the attacks of Russia.
“We want to be productive with the Americans, it is not our choice to discuss,” said the Ukrainian official.
Trump claimed this week that Zelenskyy had sparked the war and had raised the issues on Friday saying that the Ukrainian president did not need to be involved in negotiations to end him. Trump also called Zelenskyy as a “dictator” in an article on social networks.
“I don’t think it’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you,” said Trump. “When Zelenskyy said, oh, he was not invited to a meeting, I mean, it was not a priority because he has done such a bad job to negotiate so far.”
Friday, Waltz told his audience of conservatives outside of Washington that the United States had “an obligation” towards the American taxpayer “to recover the hundreds of billions of dollars which were invested in this war”, drawing applause of The crowd.
He added that Europe was “often” reimbursed for its contributions to Ukraine, so the United States should be too.
“Here is the essential, President Zelenskyy will sign this agreement, and you will see this in the short term,” said Waltz. “And it’s good for Ukraine. What could you have better for Ukraine than being in economic partnership with the United States? . . . What could you have in Ukraine to stop murder? »»
Waltz has also portrayed Trump as a peacemaker. “He will end the war in Europe. He will end the wars in the Middle East. He will reinvest the United States and our leaders in our own hemisphere, from the Arctic to the border in Panama, “he said.
“At the end of all this, we will have the Nobel Peace Prize sitting next to the name of Donald J Trump,” he added.
