Ukraine’s Zelenskyy ready to sign minerals agreement if ‘parties are ready’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told UK media on Sunday that his country is prepared to negotiate a minerals agreement with the United States.

He said, “The agreement that’s on the table will be signed if the parties are ready,” following a historic summit in London, during a late-night meeting with some UK reporters.

The agreement, which was expected to help resolve the crisis in Ukraine, fell through on Friday following a televised dispute with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

“It is our policy to continue what happened in the past, we’re constructive,” Zelenskyy stated, according to a BBC statement.

“If we agreed to sign the minerals deal, we’re ready to sign it.”

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Zelenskyy had travelled to Washington for a full White House visit on Friday to sign a US-Ukrainian deal for the joint exploitation of Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, as part of a post-war recovery in a US-brokered peace deal.

But in their Oval Office meeting, Trump berated Zelenskyy, telling him to be more “thankful” for US support in the three-year war and that without US assistance Ukraine would have been conquered by Russia.

“You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” Trump added. “And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”

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The US leader had previously said the proposed minerals deal would be “very fair”.

The proposal was to give Washington financial benefits for helping Ukraine in a truce, even if Trump has repeatedly refused to commit any US military force as a back-up to European troops who might act as peacekeepers.

After the heated exchange, Zelenskyy drove off in his motorcade shortly after having been asked to leave, without holding a planned joint press conference. The resources deal was left unsigned, the White House said.

Ukraine’s allies rallied around Zelenskyy on Sunday at a summit hosted by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer who said many European leaders had pledged to spend more on security and assemble a coalition to defend any truce.

French President Emmanuel Macron, flying back from the London summit, said in a newspaper interview that France and Britain wanted to propose a partial one-month truce with Russia.