Trump official says minerals deal will give Kyiv post-war 'security shield'

By Tom Balmforth, Max Hunder and Yuliia Dysa

KYIV (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday that a minerals deal between Kyiv and Washington would provide Ukraine with a post-war "security shield", and President Volodmyr Zelenskiy said he hoped to reach an agreement within days.

Bessent, the first cabinet-level official on Donald Trump's team to visit Kyiv, spoke after Zelenskiy said he was ready to do a deal to open mineral resources to U.S. investment, as he vies for the U.S. president's backing in the war against Russia.

Trump, who wants a rapid end to the war but has not made clear if he will continue vital military aid to Kyiv, has said he wants $500 billion in rare earth minerals from Ukraine and that Washington's support needs to be "secured".

Zelenskiy told reporters that the United States had on Wednesday presented Ukraine with a first draft agreement, which Kyiv would now study, and that he hoped they could seal a deal at the February 14-16 Munich Security Conference.

"We had a productive, constructive conversation. For me, the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine is very important, and we talked about minerals in general," said Zelenskiy, who is expected to meet U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Munich.

Bessent said the minerals deal was part of a "larger peace deal that Trump has in mind", adding that his first visit to Ukraine showed that the war was a top priority for the Trump administration.

"By increasing our economic commitment through a partnership with the government and people of Ukraine, that will provide - once this conflict is over – it will provide a long-term security shield for all Ukrainians," Bessent said.

Though firm details are still unclear, that message will be welcomed by anxious Ukrainians watching nervously at how the Trump team has been engaging with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Not long after the conclusion of the joint news conference, Trump wrote on social media that he had had a "lengthy and productive phone call" with Putin to discuss ending the war.

Zelenskiy has emphasised throughout the war that Ukraine needs its Western allies to provide it with security guarantees that would prevent Russia using any break in the fighting to regroup and launch another invasion later on.

Zelenskiy said at the news conference that he could only discuss the subject of U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine with Trump directly.

PRE-DAWN MISSILE STRIKE

Bessent's visit came hours after Kyiv's residents were awoken by a pre dawn Russian ballistic missile attack that killed one person in the city as the sound of explosions rang out.

The prospective minerals deal shows how Ukraine has rapidly reset its foreign policy approach to align with the transactional world view set out by the new occupant of the White House, Ukraine's most important wartime ally.

Trump's decision to send his treasury secretary before any other official was striking in a wartime capital that has been a revolving door for Western security, defence and political officials over almost three years of war.

Bessent has said he supports ratcheting up sanctions on Russia's oil sector, a move begun by the Biden administration shortly before leaving office.

As fighting rages in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been advancing for many months, the visit is the first in a series of important diplomatic tests for Ukraine, including at the Munich Security Conference which Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, is due to attend.

On Monday, Russia's point man for relations with the United States said that all of Putin's conditions must be met in full before the war in Ukraine could end, suggesting Moscow is playing hardball with Trump.

Those conditions include Ukraine dropping its NATO ambitions and withdrawing its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia, something Kyiv has likened to capitulation.

(Additional reporting by Gram Slattery and Andrea Shalal; editing by Gareth Jones and Mike Collett-White)