TRANSCRIPT
"I hear that he's coming on Friday. Certainly, it's okay with me if he'd like to."
United States President Donald Trump says he's expecting a visit from his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"And he would like to sign it together with me and I understand that's a big deal, very big deal."
The two presidents appear to be preparing to seal a broad economic agreement centred on resource extraction, as efforts to end Russia's war on Ukraine gather pace.
It comes after weeks of negotiations, with President Trump trying to extract compensation for U-S military aid, while Ukraine attempts to retain the lifeline behind its war effort.
Terms of any deal have not been made public, and some details still need to be agreed when the two men meet at the White House.
Media reports say the key sticking points so far have revolved around whether Ukraine will retrospectively pay back US aid; what security guarantees Ukraine can expect; and how revenue from resource reserves such as critical minerals might be split.
They suggest the draft deal does not give the US $500 billion of profits as compensation for past military aid, as Mr Trump had demanded.
Instead, the US and Ukraine would have a joint fund in which Ukraine contributes half of its future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil and gas.
Mr Zelenskyy appears to have compromised too.
According to reports, the deal does not include explicit security guarantees, as Ukraine had sought, but rather a broad reference to security which lacks specific commitments.
Ukrainian officials are reportedly happy with the new draft deal, which was originally suggested by Mr Zelenskyy, but talks appeared to have broken down when Mr Trump unleashed this remarkable spray just six days ago, after a previous draft deal was knocked back by Ukraine.
"A dictator without elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. Gotta move, gotta move fast, because that war's going in the wrong direction. In the meantime, we're successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia, something all admit that only Trump is going to be able to do, and the Trump administration. We're going to be able to do it. I think Putin even admitted that."
The economic agreement and associated military aid has been seen as an increasingly urgent since President Trump agreed to talks with Russia to end the war.
Those negotiations went ahead without the involvement of Ukraine or Europe, sparking concerns they were being sidelined in the nascent peace process.
That ignited a flurry of summits and pledges, with European countries increasingly saying they may be willing to provide peacekeeping troops.
European nations have also signalled that they intend to increase defence spending - something Donald Trump has been demanding for years.
Ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump at the White House this week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer made this announcement.
"Tyrants like Putin only respond to strength. So today I have announced the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War. We will keep our manifesto commitment to spend 2.5 per cent of our GDP on defence. But in light of the grave threats that we face, we will bring forward that target, so we meet it in 2027. That is an increase of 13.4 billion pounds year on year compared to where we are today."
It comes a day after a meeting between Mr Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, who says he wants a quick peace, but not if the agreement is weak.
Mr Macron is suggesting a truce for now.
"My strong point was to say, let's try to get something first, which is which can be assessed, checked and verified, and let's be sure that we build sufficient guarantees in the short run, and this is where we are ready to be engaged. As for friends, a lot of my European colleagues are ready to ready to be engaged. But we do need this American backup because this is part of the credibility of the security guarantees and this is our collective deterrence capacity."
Mr Trump agrees any peace deal would need to be underpinned by some form of peacekeeping force.
He said President Putin told him he would accept European boots on the ground, but Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other officials have repeatedly denied it, saying Ukraine's push to join NATO is among the root causes of the war.
And the United States split with its traditional allies ((Tue)) to vote against a resolution in the UN General Assembly, refusing to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine and instead siding with Russia, North Korea, Israel and others.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed the move.
"We see that the United States is taking a much more balanced position, which genuinely contributes to efforts aimed at resolving the conflict around Ukraine. We certainly welcome this. We believe that such a balanced stance truly reflects a genuine desire to contribute to a resolution."
It appears the US and Russia are also exploring their own options to increase economic ties:
"I'd like to buy minerals on Russian land, too, if we can. The rare earth they have very good rare earth also. They both do. I would say that. And oil and gas. Look, it's a great thing if we sell this. It's great for Russia too, because we could do deals there. They have very valuable land that isn't utilised. So something like that could take place here."
