KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A contentious Trump administration proposal to give the U.S. $500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv has been taken off the table, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday, indicating a more equitable deal is in the works.
Zelenskyy had earlier declined a U.S. draft agreement on exploitation of his country’s valuable minerals such as lithium used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries because it did not contain security guarantees and came with the $500 billion price tag.
“The question of $500 billion is no longer there,” Zelenskyy told a news conference at a forum of government officials in Kyiv marking the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader said considering aid as a debt to be repaid would be a “Pandora’s box” that would set a precedent requiring Kyiv to reimburse all its backers.
“We do not recognize the debt,” Zelenskyy said. “It will not be in the final format of the agreement.”
No further details were given on the state of negotiations. Ukraine has insisted on security guarantees that it needs to deter any potential Russian aggression in the future.
I don’t know how the leader of the Free World, Zelensky, can make any deal at all with the Fascist leader of The United States, Donald Trump, there is no mechanism on earth which can secure it’s gurantees, no court or cop that can make The United States live up to any agreements it makes. The only thing that stops Trump from landing US tropps in the half of Ukraine that Trump hasn’t already agreed with Russia they retain immediately, is UK & French troops that march in to create a human bullwark that Trump is too afraid to fire on. That’s it. Maybe Zelensky is just buying time to see if Europe will get it’s shit together.
I bet they don’t, nothing Europe has ever done, has ever been this sort of heroic, ever. I think Europe will cauterize Ukraine, end it’s financial and military hardware support, to concentrate on it’s own borders, now that it’s defense needs to be against both The United States and Russia.