US eases demands on Ukraine's aid repayment in minerals deal talks

By Volodymyr Verbianyi and Alberto Nardelli

 

The US appears to have tempered its demands for the payback of aid by Ukraine during talks over an economic deal between the two nations, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

Following a round of negotiations in Washington last week, President Donald Trump’s administration has reduced its estimate for the assistance the US provided to Kyiv since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion from $300 billion to about $100 billion, the people said. This bring it closer to Ukraine’s own estimate of more than $90 billion.

 

The Trump administration is pressing Kyiv for a deal to share profits from future Ukrainian investment projects, including in minerals and infrastructure. Washington sees it as compensation for the tens of billions of dollars in weapons and other assistance given to the nation under the previous president, Joe Biden, since Russia began its full-scale invasion more than three years ago. 

 

 

The partnership agreement would grant the US first claim on profits transferred into a special reconstruction investment fund that would be controlled by Washington. Kyiv is seeking better terms and refusing to recognize past US aid as debt.

 

Ukraine’s government has declined to comment until a deal is signed. The White House and Treasury Department didn’t respond to a request for comment. The technical talks were highly productive, a Treasury Department spokesperson said, adding that they were looking forward to bringing the negotiations to a conclusion soon. 

 

Asked about the status of talks on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Ukraine came with a counterproposal over the weekend and negotiations are still proceeding. “We are very, very close,” Bessent told Bloomberg News in Buenos Aires. “It could even be signed as early as this week.”

 

Talks between technical teams on Friday and Saturday were constructive, one of the people said. But the US still approached the deal as an opportunity to recoup costs in Ukraine through profits from the fund, whose size the latest draft still doesn’t specify, that person said. 

 

The Trump administration remains reluctant to pledge future investment in the fund — a key interest of Kyiv in any such deal — and put this issue on hold for discussion, according to the people. Instead, it continues to insist that US wartime spending on Ukraine should be treated as Washington’s contribution to the fund, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.

 

Ukrainian negotiators have struggled to talk their US counterparts out of that approach, which has underpinned several of the most draconian demands from Washington, the people said.

 

Red Line

Kyiv needs to tread carefully. An Oval Office clash between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in February led to a previous deal being scrapped, prompting the US to briefly suspend its aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

 

Trump on Monday again blamed Zelenskiy for the war in Ukraine amid questions about which side is responsible for the failure to achieve the ceasefire. The US president has previously also expressed expressed frustration at the pace of negotiations with Russia, which has so far declined to accept his proposal for a truce as a starting-point for broader peace talks.

 

Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News on Monday that he saw “a possibility to reshape the Russian-United States relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities that I think give real stability to the region too.” Witkoff met Putin for nearly five hours in St. Petersburg last week. 

 

The stakes are also high for Kyiv’s aspirations to join the European Union, as any preferential treatment for the US could run afoul of its single market rules. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal last week described his country’s EU goal as “the No. 1 red line” for the agreement. 

 

Last week’s talks in Washington focused largely on the details of the potential deal and didn’t include any senior government leaders. Lawyers will continue to work remotely this week to complete the draft as soon as possible, one person said. The law firm Hogan Lovells is providing Kyiv with legal advice.

 

One of the tasks for Kyiv for the next online meeting later this week is to provide details on specific projects that could be initiated under the deal, a person said.

 

The draft of the profit-sharing agreement presented by the American team envisages multiple concessions from Kyiv, such as allowing the US to share the potential revenues from Ukrainian investments in lucrative assets including oil, gas, rare earth minerals and seaports.