US offers Ukraine ‘improved’ natural resources deal amid Trump-Zelensky rift

The US has presented Ukraine with an “improved” draft of an agreement granting Washington access to the country’s natural resources in exchange for its continued military support, Axios reported on Thursday, citing a US official and three sources familiar with the matter.

According to one of the sources, the draft had undergone “significant” improvement since it was first presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who rejected the offer, last week and was now “in conformity with Ukrainian law”.

Zelensky’s advisors have encouraged him to sign the revised agreement to “avoid a further clash with Trump” and allow the US president to “justify” US military support for Kyiv, one source said, with sources on both sides agreeing that a deal was now more likely.

Under the initial proposal revealed in a leaked US government document earlier this week, Kyiv would have agreed to hand over up to 50% of revenues from the extraction of its natural resources to Washington, amounting to a higher share of Ukraine’s GDP than the reparations for World War I imposed on Germany under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

That proposal, which The Telegraph called tantamount to “the US economic colonisation of Ukraine”, was reportedly rejected out of hand by Zelensky, who said on Wednesday that he could not “sell” Ukraine.

Shortly before Zelensky met with Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Thursday, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz advised Zelensky to “tone down” his rhetoric towards Trump then “take a hard look and sign that deal” in light of the billions in US military assistance provided to Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

On Wednesday, a report by Bloomberg suggested that Ukraine may not in fact hold any significant reserves of the main rare earth minerals — a set of 17 metals crucial to producing electronics — sought by Trump, with Zelensky reportedly having “talked up” the potential of the country’s natural resources in November in an attempt to interest the then-president elect in his “victory plan” for Ukraine.