US, Ukraine announce nearing agreement on minerals

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will sign a minerals agreement with the United States.

Zelensky announced on Sunday that Kiev and Washington are close to reaching an agreement on access to natural resources in Ukraine in exchange for security assistance, while the US envoy expected it to be signed within a week.

"We are making progress," Zelensky said at a press conference in Kiev, adding that Ukrainian and US officials discussed the agreement earlier on Sunday.

For his part, US envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed to CNN, "I expect an agreement to be signed this week, and you saw President Zelensky hesitate in his commitment to that a week ago, US President Donald Trump sent him a letter, and he will not hesitate anymore."

He added that Zelensky "understands that we have done a lot and that this agreement must be signed."

The latest developments come after Ukrainian authorities announced on Sunday that there were some $350 billion worth of Ukrainian vital resources in areas seized by Russia.

Kiev has resisted Trump’s calls to use Ukraine’s resources as compensation for aid it received under President Joe Biden.

But large parts of Ukraine’s resource base lie in the industrial Donbas region in the east of the country, where Russia has seized territory and is still advancing.

“We have information that, unfortunately, about $350 billion worth of these useful vital resources are located in the temporarily occupied area,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko told a news conference in Kiev.

She said some of the statistics on these deposits were “outdated,” but the estimates were based on geological surveys and open-source data.

Zelensky is seeking concrete security guarantees from Trump in exchange for Washington’s access to vital resources such as lithium, titanium, uranium and rare earth metals that are essential for electronics production.

Trump and his aides have previously expressed frustration with Zelensky's unwillingness to sign an agreement on the matter. A source in Ukraine told AFP on Saturday that the Ukrainian president was "not ready" to agree to the current US demands.