Ukraine said it would not be railroaded into any unfavourable deals to end its war with Russia or trade away its natural resources to the United States, as officials from Moscow and Washington prepared to meet in Saudi Arabia without Kyiv’s involvement.
Aides to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had staunchly defended his country’s interests during a tumultuous Munich Security Conference at the weekend and showed that Kyiv would stand up to the Kremlin and Washington in efforts to end Europe’s biggest war in 80 years.
“The Ukrainian delegation brought to Germany the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian nation. And confidence in the future, even though we are a country at war,” Andriy Yermak, Mr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said on Sunday.
Kyiv and the EU capitals were stunned last week when US president Donald Trump called Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and said negotiations to end the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine would start immediately. They were shocked further by comments from Washington that it did not expect European states to take part in the peace talks.
At the same time, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to hand key concessions to Moscow by telling Ukraine not to expect any deal to include the return of all occupied territory, Nato membership or a commitment of US peacekeepers.
“At every meeting, in all dialogue, we defended the line that dialogue on European security cannot exist without Ukraine and the EU,” Mr Yermak said of Mr Zelenskiy’s meetings with senior US officials in Munich.
“We talked about security guarantees. And the president made clear that we will not accept any agreement that is adopted without Ukraine. And we need the United States in security guarantees. We will never make decisions that are against Ukrainian interests.”
During a meeting in Kyiv last week, Mr Zelenskiy rejected a draft deal presented by visiting US treasury secretary Scott Bessent that would reportedly have given the United States ownership of 50 per cent of Ukraine’s rare-earth resources and valuable metals such as lithium, which are crucial for high-technology industries. Mr Trump says such a deal would repay the US for military aid given to Kyiv in recent years.
“Ukraine clearly defined the red lines of its own interests. Specific details will be added to the conversation about an agreement on rare-earth resources, but it still needs time and ideas before it is ready,” Mr Yermak said.
[ Starmer and Tusk to join Macron-led crisis summit in Paris for talks on Trump’s Ukraine plan ]
European leaders will hold an emergency summit on Ukraine on Monday in Paris, while senior US officials travel to Saudi Arabia, where secretary of state Marco Rubio will reportedly meet Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov this week.
In a call on Saturday, the top US and Russian diplomats agreed to maintain contact “in the interests of removing unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment co-operation inherited from the previous (US) administration,” Moscow’s foreign ministry said.
Mr Rubio and Mr Lavrov also “expressed their mutual willingness to engage on pressing international issues, including the settlement around Ukraine, the situation around Palestine and the Middle East in general.”
Mr Zelenskiy has said he will visit Saudi Arabia in the coming days, but not to meet Russian or US officials. “Information about meetings with the Russians is fake. There were no meetings and none are expected until we have developed a plan,” Mr Yermak said.
Moscow has warmly praised Mr Trump for calling Mr Putin and pledging to end a war that it claimed, falsely, was caused by Ukrainian and Nato threats to Russia.
“This is a powerful signal that we will now try to solve problems through dialogue and will now talk about peace, not war,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
