Top Trump official to explore mineral and energy deal in Kyiv

As Ukraine tries to get support from U.S. President Donald Trump at a dangerous diplomatic point in the conflict with Russia, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday to negotiate a crucial minerals contract.

Bessent, the first member of Trump’s cabinet to travel to Ukraine, is expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has stated that he is amenable to a settlement with Washington and seeks to secure security assurances from the United States to put an end to the conflict with Russia.

Hours before the visit, residents of Kyiv were awakened by the sound of explosions following a Russian ballistic missile assault that killed one person in the city before daybreak.

Although he has not stated if he will continue to provide Kyiv with critical military backing, Trump, who wants the violence to end quickly, has stated that Washington’s support must be “secured” and that he wants $500 billion in rare earth materials from Ukraine.

In a Reuters interview last week, Zelenskiy laid out the details of a transaction by claiming he was providing a mutually advantageous relationship to develop them jointly rather than “giving them away” and displaying a map with many mineral reserves.

Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, would use the visit to talk about a strategic minerals deal that would also cover energy resources, energy assets, and state-owned businesses, according to a U.S. source with knowledge of the situation.

Those comments may allude in part to another proposal that Zelenskiy has stated Kyiv and the White House are considering: using Ukraine’s extensive subterranean storage facilities to store American natural gas for Europe.

According to the source, a deal would offer the US a stake in Ukraine’s economic and security prospects.

An apprehensive Kyiv, which has been watching with trepidation how the Trump administration has been interacting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, would welcome the visit as a concrete indication of genuine U.S. involvement in Ukraine.

Following U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow on Tuesday—the first senior U.S. official to visit Russia since prior to the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine—Russia released a U.S. prisoner.

The potential minerals agreement demonstrates how Ukraine has quickly reoriented its foreign policy strategy to conform to the transactional worldview outlined by the country’s most significant wartime partner and the current White House occupant.

“Astonishing progress”

In a wartime city that has served as a revolving door for Western security, defense, and political leaders throughout almost three years of conflict, Trump’s choice to send his Treasury Secretary before any other official was startling.

Bessent has promised to intensify sanctions on Russia’s energy industry, which the Biden administration started just before he left office.

The visit is the first of several significant diplomatic tests for Ukraine this week as war continues in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been making progress for months.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to attend the inaugural meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which was established under former U.S. President Joe Biden to provide arms to wartime Ukraine, on Wednesday.

Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is also expected to attend the Munich Security Conference, where Zelenskiy will meet U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the conclusion of the week.

Trump has stated that he hopes to speak with Zelenskiy this week and has made “tremendous progress” toward an agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

In an apparent attempt to play hardball with Trump, Russia’s point man for ties with the US stated on Monday that all of Putin’s demands must be fulfilled in full before the conflict in Ukraine can be resolved.

These requirements include Ukraine abandoning its aspirations to join NATO and removing its forces from all of the land of four Ukrainian areas that Russia claims and primarily controls, a move Kyiv has compared to surrender.

According to Zelenskiy, his team is trying to arrange a meeting with Trump, and it is crucial that this take place before the US president meets with Putin.

Trump has hinted that he has had conversations with Putin, but he has not provided specifics. That they had spoken has not been verified or refuted by the Kremlin.