Zelenskiy plans to travel to US to meet Trump on minerals deal, sources say

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00:00Our Ukrainian officials are suggesting that Kiev has agreed the terms of a

00:04minerals deal with the US and could sign it as early as Friday when President

00:09Zelensky is in Washington. His American counterpart has demanded that Ukraine

00:14give the United States access to its rare earth minerals to compensate for

00:18the billions of dollars worth of wartime aid it has received. Ukraine had asked

00:24for security guarantees from the US as part of any agreement. Let's get some

00:30more details now from Fraser Jackson, he's our correspondent in Washington.

00:35Fraser, it appears we are very close now to getting a deal over the line here.

00:40What more do we know at this stage? So we're still awaiting official

00:45confirmation from the Ukrainians that they have indeed accepted the the terms

00:49of this deal. I'm reaching out to a couple of sources in the Ukrainian

00:53government as well who are still getting back to me but it is widely

00:58reported now by a couple of news agencies citing sources with knowledge

01:03of the deal that this mineral deal between the US and Ukraine is going to

01:07be signed and that Zelensky will be coming here to DC on Friday to sign that

01:11deal. Now the last draft of this deal that we saw was seen by the Axios news

01:16agency and in it the US expresses its desire to keep Ukraine quote free

01:21sovereign and secure. Now it calls for the establishment of what's being called

01:25a reconstruction investment fund that will be co-managed by the US and Ukraine.

01:30In the agreement it says the government of the United States of America intends

01:34to provide a long-term financial commitment to the development of a

01:38stable and economically prosperous Ukraine. It also adds that the fund will

01:42be designed so as to invest in projects in Ukraine and attract investments to

01:47increase development in Ukraine as well especially in areas like mining and

01:52ports as well. But it also suggests that the US will recoup some of its

01:56expenditure that has been related to defending, reconstructing and returning

02:01Ukraine to its pre-war condition. Now of course there's no mention in there at the

02:06moment of security guarantees but it's understood from a couple of sources that

02:10I've spoken to that basically the way this is going to work and that the way

02:14that the Europeans want this to work is that this mineral deal will be the

02:17kind of wider anchor that will keep the United States interested and invested in

02:23Ukraine to ensure that any further aggression from Russia is

02:28not a viable part. So the idea is that they want to get a ceasefire in

02:34place in the immediate term just to stop the fighting at which point there will

02:38be European peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine. Sources that I'm talking to

02:43say that this is still a very very early stage of discussion and that there's not

02:47really much meat on this bone at the moment yet as to how this will look but

02:51of course Vladimir Putin, according to Donald Trump at least, has said that he's

02:56okay with European peacekeepers being on the ground in Ukraine. I think that

03:02came as a surprise to everybody when Trump said that in the Oval Office on

03:05Monday. So there is still some fleshing out of how this deal will actually be

03:11implemented and the meaning of it but the idea here for Ukraine is that they

03:15keep the U.S. interested in staying in Ukraine and that

03:22will stop any kind of Russian aggression. Separately then Fraser, the Kremlin is

03:27saying that it sees potential for cooperation with the U.S. on developing

03:31Russia's large reserves of strategically important rare earth minerals. What more

03:36do we know about that at this stage? Well the Kremlin is of course trying

03:41desperately to rekindle some kind of relationship with America. You can

03:47see that from the rhetoric that the Kremlin has been using over the last

03:50couple of days, especially when they met with the U.S. in Riyadh saying it was the

03:54meeting of two great powers. Well the Russians are trying now to kind of

03:58appeal to the businessman mind of Donald Trump which of course many people will

04:03know is his kind of default setting, the real estate developer, the business

04:07dealer, that is what he prides himself on more than anything. So they're trying to

04:11appeal it to him with a better business proposal effectively by saying that

04:15Russia has more significant rare earth minerals resources than Ukraine does. A

04:21lot of Ukraines are actually also in that war-torn region in the east that

04:25has been occupied by Russian forces at the moment. So Vladimir

04:30Putin then maybe dangling the carrot here before Donald Trump to see whether

04:34he'll bite at this and potentially walk away from the Europeans. But the

04:38Europeans are of course hoping that this deal in Ukraine is enough to make sure

04:41that the U.S. stays on their side and doesn't do any kind of economic dealings

04:46with the Russians. Fraser, thank you so much for joining us with all of that

04:50detail. That's our correspondent in Washington, Fraser Jackson.

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