U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine says he held "extensive and positive" discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the White House continues to explore a peace deal and also strike an agreement with Kyiv on accessing the country’s valuable minerals in exchange for U.S. assistance.
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"A long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine,” Keith Kellogg wrote in a February 21 post on X in his first comments about his meeting with Zelenskyy since reporters gathered for a February 20 press conference only for it to be canceled at the last minute.
Kellogg called the Ukrainian president an “embattled and courageous leader” while Zelenskyy said that the meeting “restores hope” following a public rift between Kyiv and Washington, with Trump calling the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections” and Zelenskyy accusing him of echoing Russian propaganda.
The conciliatory comments came on the final day of a multiday visit to Ukraine by Kellogg and a few days after U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia about ending three years of war in Ukraine.
Since those talks, Trump and Zelenskyy have traded public criticism amid growing tensions between Kyiv and Washington.
Trump continued his critique on February 21, saying there is "no need to include Zelenskyy in peace talks" because the Ukrainian leader has so far failed to end the war.
"I've been watching him negotiate with no cards. He has no cards and you get sick of it...I've had it," Trump told Fox News radio.
In addition to exploring the path for a peace deal, Kellogg's visit came amid discussions on reaching a possible agreement that would grant the United States access to lucrative Ukrainian critical minerals and rare earth deposits as compensation for past U.S. aid following Russia’s full-scale invasion while also potentially securing future American assistance.
The exact terms of the U.S. offer are not known and it remains unclear if progress was made during Kellogg’s trip.
Both Reuters and Axios reported that U.S. officials during Kellogg’s visit presented a new streamlined minerals pact to Kyiv after Zelenskyy rejected an initial offer presented by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, which would have given the United States a 50 percent stake in Ukraine’s natural resources, including minerals, metals, oil, and gas.
SEE ALSO: Ukraine Needs U.S. Weapons. Trump Wants Its Rare Earth Minerals In Return.The new U.S. offer reportedly aims to quickly reach a new simplified agreement with Kyiv and then later negotiate detailed terms. Zelenskyy raised concerns when he rejected the offer last week about some provisions, including a lack of security guarantees for Ukraine. The new U.S. offer is said to have made “improved” modifications to the previous one, according to Reuters and Axios.
U.S. national-security adviser Mike Waltz said on February 21 while on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington that he expects Kyiv to sign the deal, adding that it would "recoup the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been invested in this war" for U.S. taxpayers.
"President Zelenskyy is going to sign that deal," he said. "And you will see that in the very short term."
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also accused Zelenskyy of backtracking in discussions on a minerals deal during a February 21 interview. He said that an agreement was reached in principle with Zelenskyy that the United States would take a portion of Ukraine's desposits in exchange for previous and future aid.
"[Zelensky] said: "Sure, we want to do this deal, it makes all the sense in the world, the only thing is I need to run it through my legislative process -- they have to approve it," Rubio said. "I read two days later that Zelensky is out there saying: "I rejected the deal, I told them no way, we're not doing that", but that's not what happened in that meeting. So, you start to get upset."
Trump has repeatedly said that he wants some form of reimbursement for the assistance that Washington has invested in Ukraine’s defense and said that he wants a resource pact in place before authorizing more U.S. military support.
Access to Ukrainian resources, in particular the country’s rare earth deposits, could be worth trillions in total.
Ukraine has deposits of 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals and metals in the world -- with up to 50 percent of all Ukraine’s rare earth supplies in the eastern part of the country.
Rare earths are a valuable class of 17 minerals that make up a critical part of items like smartphones and laptops, but also advanced weaponry like missiles, fighter jets, tanks, and drones. China currently produces about 60 percent of the world's rare earths and refines more than 90 percent of them. This has left many countries, the United States in particular, looking to reduce their dependency on China and tap into other mineral reserves.
Washington said it wanted $500 billion worth of Ukraine's critical minerals, which Zelenskiy said during a February 19 press conference was “not serious.”
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Why Are Rare Earth Minerals Making Headlines?
That disagreement over resources helped spark a wider crisis in relations between Kyiv and Washington amid an exchange of public criticism and fears in Kyiv and European capitals that the U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh could sideline Ukraine and bring about a peace deal that favors Russia.
During his interview with Fox News radio, Trump said he stands by not inviting Zelenskyy to the meeting in Saudi Arabia because Russia "found it impossible to make a deal with [him]," but added that he would still take a call from Zelenskyy despite their recent exchange of words.
Amid Kellogg’s visit and the quickening pace of diplomacy to reach a peace settlement for the war, fighting continues in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said that 12 civilians were killed and six more were injured over the past day in Russian attacks.
Local officials said the strikes -- which Ukrainian Air Force says involved 160 Russian drones -- hit dozens of homes and damaged infrastructure across the Donetsk, Kherson, Nikopol, and Zaporizhzhya regions.