Trump says Ukraine "may be Russian someday," as he eyes mineral wealth
President Trump has suggested that Ukraine "may be Russian someday," in an interview aired just days before Vice President JD Vance is set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a security summit in Germany.
"They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday," Mr. Trump, who repeatedly claimed before taking office for his second term that he would quickly end the war launched almost three years ago by Russia. He made the remarks in a portion of an interview with Fox News that was broadcast on Monday.
Ukraine and many of its European partners have worried that Mr. Trump could try to make good on his vows by pressuring Zelenskyy into a ceasefire agreement with Russia that allows Moscow to maintain control over some of the roughly 25% of Ukrainian territory Vladimir Putin's forces have occupied...
In response to Mr. Trump's comments, the Kremlin said Tuesday that the situation in Ukraine "largely corresponds to President Trump's words."
"The fact that a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia, and has already, is a fact," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in an apparent reference to Moscow's unilateral declaration in September 2022 that four occupied regions in southeast Ukraine had been annexed...
President Trump has suggested that future American military aid to Ukraine could be dependent on Kyiv committing to a trade agreement that grants U.S. access to its rare earth minerals. He has framed the idea as a return on the U.S. investment made in backing Ukraine's defensive efforts — aid which has already amounted to more than $65 billion.
"We are going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth," Mr. Trump said Monday. "They have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don't feel stupid.""
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Now, the AP continues the story:
"US presented Ukraine with a document to access its minerals but offered almost nothing in return
Ukraine has vast reserves of critical minerals that are used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries. The Trump administration has indicated it is interested in accessing them to reduce dependence on China but Zelenskyy said any exploitation would need to be tied to security guarantees for Ukraine that would deter future Russian aggression.
“For me is very important the connection between some kind of security guarantees and some kind of investment,” the Ukrainian president said.
Zelenskyy did not go into details about why he instructed his officials not to sign the document, which was given to Ukrainian officials on Wednesday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bassent on a visit to Kyiv.
“It’s a colonial agreement and Zelenskyy cannot sign it,” the former senior official said.
White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes did not explicitly confirm the offer, but said in a statement that “President Zelenskyy is being short-sighted about the excellent opportunity the Trump administration has presented to Ukraine.”
The Trump administration has grown weary of sending additional U.S. aid to Ukraine and Hughes said a minerals deal would allow American taxpayers to “recoup” money sent to Kyiv, while growing Ukraine’s economy.
Hughes added that the White House believes “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 U.S. recognizes this, the Russians recognize this, and the Ukrainians must recognize this.”
U.S. officials in discussions with their Ukrainian counterparts in Munich were commercially minded and largely concentrated on the specifics of exploring the minerals and how to form a possible partnership to do that with Ukraine, the senior official said.
The potential value of the deposits in Ukraine has not yet been discussed, with much unexplored or close to the front line.
The U.S. proposal apparently did not take into account how the deposits would be secured in the event of continuing Russian aggression. The official suggested the U.S. did not have “ready answers,” to that question and that one of their takeaways from discussions in Munich will be how to secure any mineral extraction operation in Ukraine involving people and infrastructure.
Any deal must be in accordance with Ukrainian law and acceptable to the Ukrainian people, the senior Ukrainian official said.
“Subsoil belongs to Ukrainians under the Constitution,” Kseniiia Orynchak, founder of the National Association of Mining Industry of Ukraine, previously told the AP, suggesting a deal would need popular support..."
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And finally, some food for thought from CNN:
"Putin has waited for this moment for 3 years, as Zelensky is left in the cold
...Zelensky... had hoped to meet US President Donald Trump in person to discuss a wide-ranging vision of peace, after the US president suggested Friday they might meet imminently, and his team immediately set about trying to schedule it. Instead he was presented with what Zelenksy called “serious people” – and a largely financial deal handed over by Bessent, the US billionaire turned money-man, which he didn’t sign.
It was during Bessent’s brief visit that news broke Trump had been busy elsewhere: holding perhaps his second phone call in recent days with Russian President Vladimir Putin... This time, the exchange had been sweetened by the unexpected release Tuesday of American prisoner Marc Fogel from Russian custody. Trump greeted the released 61-year-old wrapped in the Stars and Stripes, providing a perfect televised moment of rehabilitation for the Kremlin in the eyes of ordinary Americans. Why not make a decent deal with Moscow if they’re just good guys sending our guys home?...
We simply do not know the details of what Trump and Putin spoke about. But we can be sure the Kremlin head has waited for this moment for three years – yearning for the time when his grotesque tolerance of hundreds of Russian daily dead can be converted into a crack in Western unity, or NATO’s European members being told by their American guarantor they are on their own.
Trump and Putin set the tone it seems, and Zelensky got the post-brief. Trump even gloated that Putin had used his campaign slogan of “common sense,” suggesting the Kremlin head continues to study his adversary carefully to flatter. Trump ended his second post about his call with Zelensky with the remarkable switcheroo of “God bless the people of Russia and Ukraine!”
Hours earlier, Zelensky’s hopes over the key tenets of a peace deal had been torn up by new US Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth. Ukraine will not be part of NATO. Ukraine will never return to its 2014 borders. Any peacekeeping forces between Russia and Ukraine will not be American, but European or non-European. Europe must look after itself... Zelensky had openly demanded... that Americans be involved with peacekeeping, as security guarantees without America were “worthless.” Hegseth was swift to burst that bubble, fanciful as the notion was that the US would insert its men and women as prime targets in the most brutal battlefield on earth.
Instead, we are seeing the bones of a peace plan emerge in public that is close to one posited by retired Gen. Keith Kellogg back in April, when he was a private citizen and not presidential envoy to Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg suggested a peacekeeping force manned by Europeans. He said
Ukraine should give up on NATO membership. He proposed a ceasefire (and
has since in interviews suggested elections might then follow in
Ukraine). And importantly, he said Ukrainian aid should be turned into
loans that Kyiv would one day repay. Perhaps this formed part of
Bessent’s proposal to Zelensky on Wednesday.
Rare earth minerals were discussed in Kyiv on Wednesday too, although this is not necessarily great news based on precedent. When Trump was briefly enticed to support Afghanistan in 2017 because of its purported trillion dollars’ worth of minerals, he regardless signed a deal with the Taliban to let them take over just over two years later."
(Emphasis mine - M. M.)
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