Ukraine reportedly agrees draft mineral deal with U.S.

Ukraine has agreed a draft deal that if signed would give the United States access to its strategic and rare earth minerals, the Financial Times and other outlets have reported.

The reported agreement appeared to involve concessions on both sides: Ukraine has not received the security guarantees it urgently wants to help it defeat Russian invaders; but the U.S. has not been given $500 billion in potential revenue that it desired from Kyiv’s deposits, the FT reported Tuesday evening.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office did not respond to requests to confirm the news. His office said he was due to hold a press conference at around 6:30 a.m. ET.

The rare earth minerals deal is “at the 99 yard line with one inch to go,” a senior administration official engaged in the negotiations told NBC News. They added that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was 30-60 days away from completion, without elaborating on how this ambitious timeline would be achieved.

Signs of a settlement between Washing and Kyiv come after a week of deteriorating relations between the two countries. President Donald Trump provoked outrage in Ukraine and Europe by suggesting a deal that would effectively use Ukraine’s mineral wealth to pay back the U.S. for military aid delivered during the war.

That was rejected outright by Zelenskyy, who Trump in turn called a “dictator.” Meanwhile Trump has repeated the false claim that Ukraine was responsible for being invaded by Russia.

On Tuesday, Trump confirmed Zelenskyy was visiting Washington on Friday. “Yeah, I hear that,” he said in the Oval Office. “I hear that he’s coming on Friday.”

It was not clear what Ukraine would receive in the new draft agreement by way of American military support, but officials have suggested that “the minerals agreement is only part of the picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, told the FT.

Ukraine has for months supported the idea of giving Trump access to its wealth of critical and rare earth elements, which are used for everything from green technology to modern weaponry. Zelenskyy hoped this would incentivize the White House to continue supporting Kyiv with military aid, something Trump has questioned in the past.

In a likely appeal to Trump’s transactional deal-maker spirit, Russia simultaneously proposed an agreement under which the United States would gain some ownership of rare earth minerals and other valuable metals in parts of Ukraine controlled by the Russian military, according to two U.S. officials familiar with intelligence on the matter and another person briefed on the proposal.