Zelenskyy hopes U.S. trip will reveal Trump’s plans for future aid

KYIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to visit Washington this week to meet with President Donald Trump and discuss the framework for a mineral deal that Ukraine hopes will include security guarantees against Russia.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Zelenskyy said he will review the deal’s draft text, which now includes a line about measures to guarantee Ukraine’s security from future Russian attacks, and may meet with Trump on Friday – a date suggested by the White House.

Final details of the trip are being arranged by teams on both sides, he said, and are not confirmed. He also plans to travel to London to meet with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he said. He denied that Trump set any conditions regarding the deal in exchange for a meeting.

The framework for the mineral deal comes at a crucial moment since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago. If a meeting happens, Zelenskyy said he needs to hear from Trump that the United States will continue to help and support Ukraine. “I really need that for the sake of our people,” he said.

Before any next steps, he said, Kyiv must understand “where we are at with the United States.” His questions for Trump, he said, will include “Will America stop military aid or not?”

Washington has mounted immense pressure on Kyiv to sign a deal to share its mineral wealth, initially suggesting an arrangement in which profits would reimburse the United States for past support it has provided Ukraine.

Kyiv has firmly rejected any such plan, saying that past support had not been contingent on any kind of reimbursement and that it created a false debt for Ukraine.

“We don’t owe anything; we’re not in debt,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday. Allowing the deal to be framed around debts owed would set a dangerous precedent for other countries to try to set parameters that would force Ukraine to pay back aid that had not been considered as loans. It would have been “a Pandora’s box,” he said.

“I will not agree for even 10 cents of reimbursement,” he said.

He also plans to ask Trump whether, in the event the United States cuts aid to Ukraine, Kyiv will be allowed to purchase weapons directly from the country, and if it will be allowed to use money from seized Russian assets to do so.

If Zelenskyy travels to Washington to meet with Trump this week, it will offer an important signal to Kyiv, after a roller coaster two weeks in which the Trump administration took several remarkable steps toward the Kremlin – and away from Kyiv – including voting against a Ukrainian resolution in the United Nations condemning Russia’s invasion.

Zelenskyy warned Sunday that if Trump were to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin before him, it would send a dangerous signal to Americans and the world.

“We really rely on Trump and on the United States,” he said Wednesday. “It’s important not to lose America as a main guarantor or one of the guarantors (of Ukraine’s security).”

Ukraine and its partners, including France, are urgently trying to convince Washington that Russia has in the past violated its promises. Putin’s claims that he wants peace are not viewed as serious in Kyiv or most European capitals. “Whatever happens, we do not believe Russians that they want peace,” Zelenskyy said. “We believe in our army.”

Zelenskyy said he will continue to push the issue of NATO membership or equivalent guarantees. He needs to understand, he said, whether Washington will offer any such guarantees or if Ukraine will need to look elsewhere.

European nations such as France and Britain have been open to sending troops to Ukraine as part of any final deal to end the war and ensure the end of hostilities, which Trump said recently Russia would be fine with.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday, however, that Russian opposed deploying any European forces as part of a resolution to the conflict. “No one has asked us about this,” he said.

He added that the plan, “which is being imposed by the Europeans, first of all France and the British,” is “aimed … at heating up the conflict further.”

Zelenskyy’s refusal to sign any deal he deems unfair, along with his refusal to succumb to Russian and U.S. pressure to hold elections and his quip that Trump is living in a “disinformation bubble,” dramatically boosted his image at home, where many Ukrainians see him as standing up for the nation. But his comments also resulted in Trump publicly lashing out in return, calling Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections.”

Speaking on Ukrainian television on Wednesday, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Ukraine would not “sign or even look at any slavish or colonial agreements that did not consider the interests of our country.” The deal was a “preliminary agreement” that was “directly tied” to security guarantees for Ukraine, and once those were agreed on, it would be signed, he said.

Shmyhal said that Ukraine’s government would meet Wednesday to authorize ministers to sign the agreement.

The agreement creates a legal framework for an investment fund, which would help pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction, which Kyiv and Washington would jointly manage, he said.

Revenue would come from future development of Ukraine’s mineral resources, while projects licensed or under development would not be affected, he said. Ukraine would contribute half of its future income from the mineral resources to the fund, while the United States would make “relevant contributions.”

“The money that this fund will invest and earn will be reinvested again and again in the restoration and further development of our state,” Shmyhal said.