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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says further agreement on fund to follow
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Washington to sign a deal on rare earth minerals on Friday, Donald Trump has said.
The US president said Washington would get “a lot of money” back from Ukraine under the deal, but warned that he would be providing minimal guarantees to Ukraine for security from future Russian aggression under any peace deal.
“I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much – we’re going to have Europe do that because we’re talking about Europe is their next door neighbour,” Mr Trump told reporters.
Mr Zelensky has said that a framework economic deal with the US is ready – but security guarantees that Kyiv views as vital remain to be decided.
Earlier, Russia contradicted Mr Trump by saying it strongly opposed European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine, with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claiming it is a “deceit … aimed at fuelling the conflict”.
The peacekeeping force, proposed by French president Emmanuel Macron and endorsed by Sir Keir Starmer, is intended as a security guarantee against future Russian aggression.
Three years after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion, Ukraine still faces a very uncertain future.
Just one month after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the US president has thrown whatever hopes Kyiv had for future American support into chaos.
In the last week alone he has launched repeated attacks on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, falsely branding him a “dictator” and wrongly accusing Ukraine of “starting” the war.
And so Ukraine now finds itself fighting a war on two fronts: the grind against the Russian invaders to the east, and the battle to keep Mr Trump on side to the west.
Here, The Independent looks at the very real costs of three years of war in Europe – financially, militarily and on the lives of the men and women who continue to fight for their freedom.
Alicja Hagopian and Tom Watling report:
Romanian prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation against pro-Russia former presidential candidate Calin Georgescu.
Georgescu was the far-right frontrunner in last year’s cancelled presidential election, a ballot which was cancelled due to suspected Russian interference in the 62-year-old’s favour.
Prosecutors have now launched an investigation amid accusations of wrongdoing ranging from campaign funding fraud and promoting antisemitism and hate speech to acts against the constitutional order.
After questioning Georgescu for several hours on Wednesday, prosecutors said they were formally investigating him on accusations of forming an antisemitic organisation, promoting war criminals and fascist organisations, and communicating false information.
Russian and US diplomats will discuss restoring their diplomatic missions in talks on Istanbul on Thursday, both sides said on Wednesday.
US president Donald Trump is reversing his predecessor Joe Biden’s policy of isolating Russia as he looks to rebuild ties with between the White House and Moscow.
The rapprochement began with a call between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on February 12. A high-level meeting between the two sides last week in Riyadh followed.
Delegations led by US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to discuss diplomatic missions while in Saudi Arabia.
Donald Trump has unofficially announced a 25 per cent tariff on goods from the European Union, accusing the bloc of being formed to “screw the United States”.
Speaking during his first cabinet meeting, the US president said: “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that’s the purpose of it. And they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.”
The president says his administration planned to impose tariffs on the EU “very soon”.
“It will be 25 per cent, generally speaking, and that will be on cars and all other things,” he said, adding that the EU is a “different case than Canada… they’ve really taken advantage of us in a different way”.
The US wants to get as much of Ukraine back as possible in peace negotiations with Russia, president Donald Trump said in a cabinet meeting.
“We’re going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides,” he said.
“But for Ukraine we’re going to try very hard to make a good deal to get as much back as possible. We want to get as much back as possible.”
Ukraine’s parliament has approved a measure that would allow for the setting up of new courts to settle high-level political disputes, as part of a reform effort being closely watched by Kyiv’s Western partners.
The courts’ creation is a condition set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for it to continue its $15.6bn financing programme for Ukraine.
The Kyiv-based courts, which would hear cases involving state institutions, such as ministries or other central agencies, would replace a body that was dissolved in 2022 after years of corruption allegations.
Politician Yaroslav Zhelezniak said on social media the measure to create them was passed with 234 votes and that the judges of the proposed courts would be appointed with the help of foreign advisers.
Donald Trump has said that Europe – and not the US – will be providing security guarantees to Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters, the US president said: “I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much – we’re going to have Europe do that because we’re talking about Europe is their next door neighbour. But we’re going to make sure everything goes well, and as you know we’ll be really partnering with Ukraine in terms of rare earth.
“We very much need rare earth – they have great rare earth.”
Donald Trump has said that a deal to end the war in Ukraine would be “a big accomplishment” and sought to criticise his predecessor’s administration for having not spoken to Russia’s Vladimir Putin for two years.
“Most importantly by far, we’re going to make a deal with Russia and Ukraine to stop killing people. They’ll stop killing young Russian soldiers and young Ukrainian soldiers and other people in addition in the towns and cities.
“We will consider that a very important thing and a big accomplishment because it was going nowhere until this administration came in – they hadn’t spoken to President Putin in two years.
“So we’ll keep you advised.”
Mr Trump’s decision to contact Mr Putin without warning earlier this month – in a three-hour call in which he appeared to make key concessions on Ukraine’s future – shocked many of Washington’s allies, who have sought to isolate the Russian president internationally since his invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Donald Trump has said that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky will visit the White House on Friday to sign a critical minerals deal.
“It’s now confirmed and we’re going to be signing an agreement which will be a very big agreement,” Mr Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House.
Mr Trump repeated his claim that the US has contributed $350bn to Ukraine’s defence – a figure significantly higher than estimated by analysts – and insisted this was triple the amount contributed by European nations.
He said: “It’s very important to everybody, but Europe is very close. We have a big ocean separating us. So it’s very important for Europe, and they hopefully will step up and do maybe more than they are doing, and maybe a lot more.”
Mr Trump added: “We’ve been able to make a deal where we’re going to get a lot of money back, and we’re going to get a lot of money in the future, and I think that’s appropriate because we have taxpayers that shouldn’t be footing the bill, and shouldn’t be footing the bill at more than the Europeans are paying.
“So it’s all been worked out, we’re happy about it and I think that very importantly we’re going to be able to make a deal. Most importantly by far, we’re going to make a deal with Russia and Ukraine to stop killing people.”
Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet is “united” in its decision to increase defence spending by cutting the UK’s aid budget, the UK’s deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has said.
Ms Rayner told broadcasters: “No-one could have predicted the situation we are in in Europe at the moment, and, of course, it was absolutely right that the prime minister said that we had to increase defence spending because the number one responsibility of any government is to keep people safe.
“It is devastating that we’ve had to reduce the overseas aid budget, but we had to set a balanced budget, we understand the economy was in a very difficult position after 14 years of the Tories, and we’ve taken the decisive action to protect our country and to make sure that the economy is in a strong position, so that going forward we can increase the budget for overseas aid as the money becomes available.
“The cabinet had a discussion on it and we were all united that the number one responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe. We recognised that we needed to make sure we had extra resources within our defence space.”
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Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump says Zelensky will sign minerals deal on Friday but US won’t guarantee security – The Independent
