Putin is ready to discuss with the United States reductions in military budgets and joint projects on rare earth metals

Main points from the president's night interview

Russia is not against discussing with the United States a mutual reduction in defense budgets, which Donald Trump previously spoke about. Vladimir Putin stated this in an interview with propagandist Pavel Zarubin.

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“We could come to an agreement with the United States, we are not against it. It seems to me that the idea is good: the United States would cut by 50%, and we would cut by 50%, and the People's Republic of China would then join if they wanted. We believe that the proposal is good and are ready for discussions on this matter,” Putin said.

Russia is second only to China and the United States in military spending

Trump made a proposal to reduce military spending about two weeks ago. According to the US President, countries “have no reason to spend almost $1 trillion on military needs.” “We all spend a lot of money that we could use to do other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive,” Trump said on Feb. 14.

Then he added that he plans to discuss this issue with the President of Russia and the head of China as soon as “we settle everything” in the Middle East and Ukraine.

According to calculations by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2023 the US defense budget amounted to $916 billion, China - $296 billion, and Russia - $109 billion. At the same time, Russia turned out to be the leader in military spending relative to GDP - for its military budget it was commensurate with 5.9% of GDP, while for the United States this share was 3.5%, and China - 1.7%.

Putin also announced his readiness to offer projects for the extraction of rare earth metals to foreigners

“We are ready to attract foreign partners to the so-called new, our historical territories, which have returned to the Russian Federation. There are also certain reserves [of rare earth resources]. We are ready to work with our partners, including American ones,” Putin said.

This statement was made against the backdrop of discussions between Kyiv and Washington about American access to Ukrainian mineral resources. In the United States, the fossil deal is called part of Trump’s negotiating strategy to end the war and “return Ukrainians to peaceful life.”

Thus, in early February, Trump proposed exchanging Ukrainian rare earth metals for continued military assistance from Washington. He estimated the volume of the transaction at $500 billion. According to NBC, the United States offered to grant them the right to own 50% of rare earth minerals in Ukraine. Zelensky refused to sign the first version of the treaty, since the US proposal did not include security guarantees and was not suitable “to protect the interests” of Ukraine.

Let us recall that after a meeting of the Russian and US delegations in Riyadh on February 18, Vladimir Putin said that Moscow is ready to return to negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine.

Photo: Vladimir Putin during an interview with Pavel Zarubin. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS

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