Donald Trump keeps door open to Ukraine deal with Europe now optimistic

By Akayla Gardner, Ellen Milligan, Alex Wickham and Samy Adghirni

 

President Donald Trump kept the door open to signing a minerals deal with Ukraine despite his feud last week with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, adding to hope in European capitals that the agreement can be salvaged.

 

“It’s a great deal for us,” Trump told reporters Monday, adding that “I’ll let you know tomorrow,” when he addresses a joint session of Congress. He said Zelenskyy “should be more appreciative” of the billions in US assistance his country has received to fight Russia’s invasion.

 

Trump’s relatively optimistic assessment could revive prospects for the deal, which Zelenskyy had flown to the US to sign but was scrapped after an Oval Office meeting between the leaders — as well as US Vice President JD Vance — descended into testy exchanges. 

 

 

Trump’s latest comments also tracked with hopes shared by the UK and France that the two sides can reconcile, signing a deal on critical minerals and then beginning peace talks. Leaders Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are drawing-up a temporary ceasefire proposal to present to Trump that will allow detailed talks for a durable long-term peace plan to start, three years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

 

Their cautious optimism, based on private conversations between the leaders and other members of the US administration, stems from their belief that Trump is trying to mount pressure on Zelenskyy to apologize and sign the minerals agreement, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing the deliberations.

 

The UK and France are privately urging Zelenskyy to repair relations with Trump and believe the US leader is still committed to a peace deal, they said. European allies believe that Zelenskyy may need to grovel to Trump because a simple apology is unlikely to suffice, one of the people said.

 

The UK-France plan involves an initial truce between Russia and Ukraine to allow allies to work on a durable peace plan with a coalition of European troops backed by US security guarantees. It would also allow time to see whether Russia is serious about ending its aggression toward Ukraine, the people said.

 

Challenges remain. Earlier Monday, Zelenskyy expressed a willingness to meet with Trump again, despite Friday’s open confrontation at the White House, if the US president invites him for a “serious” encounter. But Zelenskyy also was quoted as predicting that the end of Ukraine’s war with Russia is “very, very far away.”

 

“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump said in a social media post. He said “this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”

 

In yet another of their exchange of posts, Zelenskyy responded: “Ukraine, Europe, the United States — only together can we restore security for all our people, and this is really possible.”

 

Zelenskyy’s clash in the Oval Office on Friday with Trump and Vance left attempts to keep the US administration on Kyiv’s side in tatters. It also set off a scramble among Europeans to get the two leaders back to the table as they tried to demonstrate broad support for Ukraine at a security summit in London.

 

“We are worthy of an equal dialog,” Zelenskyy said on Sunday after attending the summit. If the US president invites him “for a constructive dialog, to solve real problems, for serious issues and real, decisive actions and answers — I will arrive,” he said.  

 

Despite Zelenskyy’s defiant tone, he said that his country was ready to accept a natural resources deal with the US. The accord was left unsigned after the Oval Office bust-up that marked the most serious crisis between Ukraine and its biggest military supporter since Russia’s invasion.

 

Holding such a conversation in public wasn’t a good thing for either the US or Ukraine, the Ukrainian president said, declining a reporter’s request to switch to English to avoid any misinterpretation. But in a clear attempt to turn the page on the dispute, he added: “I am convinced that the situation will pass and more important things are ahead.”

 

Zelenskyy has repeatedly argued that Russia can’t be trusted to respect the terms of a potential truce unless it’s backed by security guarantees from western allies. Last month, he said he provided Trump with a list of 25 ceasefires that Moscow broke since its initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

 

European leaders led by Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron spent the weekend in a diplomatic whirlwind as they tried to mend the break with the US. They also fast-tracked efforts to improve their own defense capabilities in the wake of Trump’s outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine — potentially over their heads. 

 

The UK and France are seeking to build what Starmer called a “coalition of the willing” to participate in a peacekeeping force and help reassure Kyiv about the durability of any peace. Britain, France and “one or two” other countries will work with Ukraine on a “plan to stop the fighting,” Starmer said Sunday. 

 

Macron told Le Figaro newspaper after the gathering that the EU should provide €200 billion ($208 billion) to boost its military capabilities, a topic that will be discussed by leaders at an emergency summit in Brussels on March 6. 

 

Kremlin Responds 

The Kremlin, in its first official response, said on Monday that the “unprecedented” flare-up at the White House between Trump and Zelenskyy showed that Western unity is starting to fall apart.

 

Zelenskyy’s stance means it will be much harder to reach a settlement of the Ukraine conflict, said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, according to Interfax. “The Kyiv regime and Zelenskyy do not want peace, they want the continuation of the war,” he said.