Zelenskiy, on US minerals deal, says: I can't sell Ukraine

KYIV — President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday (Feb 19) rejected US demands for US$500 billion (S$671 billion) in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the US had supplied nowhere near that sum so far and offered no specific security guarantees in the agreement.

The Ukrainian leader, who is under major pressure from Trump's White House, said Washington had supplied his country with US$67 billion in weapons and US$31.5 billion in direct budget support throughout the nearly three-year war with Russia.

"You can't call this 500 billion and ask us to return 500 billion in minerals or something else. This is not a serious conversation," Zelenskiy said.

Trump has said he wants US$500 billion in rare earth minerals from Kyiv to secure Washington's assistance and his team last week proposed a deal that Kyiv declined to sign in its current form.

Zelenskiy has said the proposed deal did not contain the security provisions Ukraine desperately needs to protect it from Russian aggression. He said the draft deal proposed the US taking ownership of 50 per cent of Ukraine's critical minerals.

"I defend Ukraine, I can't sell our country. I said OK, give us some sort of positive. You write some sort of guarantees, and we will write a memorandum... some sort of percentages," he said.

"I was told: only 50 (per cent). I said: OK, no. Let the lawyers work some more, they did not do all the necessary work. I am just the decision maker, I don't work on the details of this document. Let them work on it."

The matter of how much aid the US has supplied to Ukraine is taking on important diplomatic significance as Kyiv tries to retain the backing of what has been its most important ally.

In his comments on Tuesday, Trump questioned where the money that has been given to Ukraine had gone.

Zelenskiy, addressing those comments, said that the combined aid from the US and the European Union amounted to US$200 billion out of a total US$320 billion spent on weaponry for the war effort.

Ukrainians shouldered the rest of the costs of around US$120 billion, he said.

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