{"id":27113,"date":"2025-02-08T07:37:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T07:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=27113"},"modified":"2025-02-08T08:02:26","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T08:02:26","slug":"zelensky-offers-minerals-to-trump-for-uss-support-in-ukraine-russia-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2025\/02\/zelensky-offers-minerals-to-trump-for-uss-support-in-ukraine-russia-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky offers minerals to Trump for US support in Ukraine-Russia war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian Presi\u00addent Volodymyr Zelensky pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals during an interview on Friday, part of a push to appeal to Donald Trump\u2019s penchant for a deal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s war with Russia, said on Monday he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are talking about a deal, then let\u2019s do a deal, we are only for it,\u201d Zelensky said, emphasising Ukraine\u2019s need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement.<\/p>\n

Ukraine floated the idea of opening its critical minerals to investment by allies last autumn, as it presented a \u201cvictory plan\u201d that sought to put it in the strongest position for talks and force Moscow to the table.<\/p>\n

Zelensky said less than 20 per cent of Ukraine\u2019s mineral resources, including about half its rare earth deposits, were under Russian occupation.<\/p>\n

Rare earths are important in the manufacture of high-performance magnets, electric motors and consumer electronics; Zelensky said Moscow could open those resources to its allies North Korea and Iran, both sworn US enemies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to stop Putin and protect what we have \u2014 a very rich Dnipro region, central Ukraine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Russian troops have been gaining ground in the east for months, throwing huge resources into an unrelenting offensive while Kyiv\u2019s much smaller army grapples with a shortage of soldiers and frets over future weapons supplies from abroad.<\/p>\n

Zelensky unfurled a map on a table in the heavily-defended president\u2019s office in Kyiv, showing numerous mineral deposits, including a broad strip of land in the east marked as containing rare earths. Around half of it looked to be on Russia\u2019s side of the current frontlines.<\/p>\n

He said Ukraine had Europe\u2019s largest reserves of titanium, essential for the aviation and space industry, and uranium, used for nuclear energy and weapons.<\/p>\n

Many of the titanium deposits were marked in northwestern Ukraine, far from the fighting.<\/p>\n

Ukraine has rapidly retuned its foreign policy approach to align with the transactional world view set out by the new occupant of the White House, Ukraine\u2019s most important ally.<\/p>\n

But Zelensky emphasised that Kyiv was not proposing \u201cgiving away\u201d its resources, but offering a mutually beneficial partnership to develop them jointly: \u201cThe Americans helped the most, and therefore the Americans should earn the most. And they should have this priority, and they will. I would also like to talk about this with President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Russia knew in detail where Ukraine\u2019s critical resources were from Soviet-era geological surveys that had been taken back to Moscow when Kyiv gained independence in 1991.<\/p>\n

In addition, Zelensky said Kyiv and the White House were discussing the idea of using Ukra\u00adine\u2019s vast underground gas storage sites to store US liquefied natural gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that the Trump administration is very interested in it \u2026 We\u2019re ready and willing to have contracts for LNG supplies to Ukraine. And of course, we will be a hub for the whole of Europe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The interview comes days before the Feb 14-16 Munich Security Conference, where officials from dozens of Western countries will converge at an unpredictable juncture in the nearly three-year-old war.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian Presi\u00addent Volodymyr Zelensky pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals during an interview on Friday, part of a push to appeal to Donald Trump\u2019s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s war with Russia, said on Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":27115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,1,194,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-0_swnen","category-world","category-news_","category-headline"],"views":51,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27113"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27118,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27113\/revisions\/27118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}