Zelenskiy: US Minerals Deal Lacks Protection for Ukraine
MUNICH (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that a bilateral critical minerals deal being discussed with the United States was not yet ready and that it did not contain the provisions Kyiv wants to protect its interests.
The deal is central to Kyiv's push to win the backing of Donald Trump as the U.S. president seeks a rapid end to the war with Russia and Kyiv pushes for security guarantees to protect it from another invasion in the event peace can be agreed.
"It is not ready yet to protect our interests," he told a news conference on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference of global political and military leaders.
Zelenskiy set out the contours of a deal in a Reuters interview last week, unfurling a map showing numerous mineral deposits and saying he was offering a mutually beneficial partnership to develop them jointly and not "giving them away".
The minerals in question would include rare earth varieties, as well as titanium, uranium and lithium among others.
Trump, who has not committed to continuing vital military aid to Ukraine, has said he wants $500 billion in rare earth minerals from Kyiv and that Washington's support needs to be "secured".
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk and Yuliia Dysa; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Mark Heinrich)
