KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday balked at signing any mineral-rights deal with the US that would be considered repayment for previous aid given under the Biden administration.
President Trump has been demanding such a pact, but Ukraine has been pushing for new security guarantees or fresh military funding in exchange for its minerals.
“I do not recognize [that Kyiv owes the US] even $100 billion,” Zelensky told reporters at a press conference a day before the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country.
“We agreed with Biden that this was a grant. A grant is not a debt,” Zelensky said.
Trump has been inaccurately repeating in recent weeks that the US has given Ukraine an estimated $350 billion to defend itself against Russia — and that a deal granting Washington rights to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of critical and rare-earth minerals in Ukraine should serve as backpay for aid offered to Kyiv before he took office.
In reality, Congress approved roughly $183 billion for Ukraine under the Biden administration — more than $65 billion of which was spent in the United States purchasing new weapons for American stockpiles after Washington donated used US weapons to Kyiv, according to the Pentagon.
Still, despite Zelensky’s tough words Sunday, there have been strong indications that Ukraine is nearing some kind of agreement on a mineral-rights arrangement with the US.
Trump’s special envoy to the Ukraine, Gen. Keith Kellogg, met Zelensky and his cabinet during an intensive three-day diplomatic trip to Kyiv last week, and part of their talks centered on a mineral deal.
As Kellogg left Ukraine on Friday, Zelensky’s office told him the Ukrainian president had been convinced to negotiate a mineral-rights deal with the US — “given your important mission and our deepest respect to you and desire that you return to President Trump with good news,” The Post can exclusively reveal.
In response, Kellogg said the US and Ukrainian leaders could “change everything for the better,” sources said.
Washington and Kyiv continued hammering out details of a deal Sunday, as Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and Andrii Yermak, head of the Office of the President, held negotiations with their US counterparts on a call in the afternoon.
Asked by The Post whether the existence of a deal could in itself be considered a security guarantee, given that it would give Trump incentive to protect Ukraine against Russian aggression, Zelensky agreed in part — but said such a promise needed to be in writing because “Trump won’t always be president.
“I know that the United States of America believes that this agreement is part of the security guarantees, and I would really like to [agree], but it should be written there that these are security guarantees and not just for you and me to say that we think [that’s the case],” the Ukrainian president told The Post.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance each made such arguments to the Ukrainian president in recent weeks, he said.
“Many people said there is such logic in the United States of America, and they have the right to this logic,” Zelensky told The Post.
“They say, ‘Look, if we [make such an agreement,] these are guarantees of security because the Russians will not go where the minerals are because this [would be] our business, these are our private companies, and everything would be fine,’” he said. “But if [Putin] wants to, nothing will stop him from repeated aggression.”
Zelensky said any guarantee that the US would protect its potential Ukrainian assets needs to be in writing, even “for example, ‘under Trump there is no Russian offensive.’
“This is not out of respect or disrespect for President Trump — but he is not going to be here forever. And we need peace for many, many years,” the Ukrainian leader said.
That stance stems from the fact that Ukraine simply is not in such a desperate position that it needs to end its defense of its country immediately — and a ceasefire may only prove to benefit Moscow, as its economy and military continues to suffer due to the war, Ukrainian Ministry of Defense Intelligence Chief Kyrylo Budanov said Sunday.
“We continue to study the weak sides of the enemy,” Budanov said. “As for a ceasefire, indeed, Russia needs that. Russia needs to catch its breath to recover its economy, to stockpile additional resources and prepare its armed forces, to regroup their units and to proceed with a new aggression against Ukraine.”
Ultimately, Zelensky said, he is “not going to sign something that is bad for Ukraine” — and that includes a ceasefire agreement with Russia without concrete future security guarantees, even as Washington’s signals that Trump could end the fighting with an agreement with Moscow as early as this week.
“We don’t trust them,” Zelensky said of Russia.
