US President Donald Trump has suggested Ukraine may fall under Russian control “someday,” as he called for the war-torn country to share its natural resources in exchange for US assistance.
Trump, whose return to power has thrown doubt over billions of dollars in future US aid to Ukraine, told Fox News in an interview on Monday that he had told Kyiv he wanted “$500 billion worth of rare earth.”
Ukrainian officials had “essentially agreed” to the proposal, he claimed.
Ukraine has “tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth, in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things,” Trump said. “I want to have our money secured, because we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars.”
He added: “They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday. But we are going to have all this money in there and I say I want it back.”
Trump, who has been vocal about the need for a quick end to the conflict but short of public ideas, had earlier floated the idea of meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week.
His envoy to Ukraine and Russia, ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg, announced he would discuss their vision for peace in Ukraine with allies at the Munich Security Conference, on February 14-16. Kellogg is then expected to visit Kyiv four days later, for his first, long-anticipated trip there, according to Ukrainian state media.