Zelenskyy meets with Trump at the White House
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at the White House on Friday, Feb. 28, to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, as reported by Sky News.
In a live broadcast, Trump was seen welcoming Zelenskyy and shaking his hand before they proceeded inside.
Another footage shows Trump pointing to the Ukrainian leader, saying that “he’s all dressed up” for the meeting. This was likely a light-hearted reference to Zelenskyy’s insistence on not wearing suits in wartime.
Earlier, Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators.
The Ukrainian president arrived in Washington to attend the signing ceremony for a bilateral framework agreement on resource extraction in Ukraine that will most certainly serve as the basis for any future Ukraine-U.S. cooperation. The document will be signed at the ministerial level.
The visit comes on the heels of rapid deterioration of Kyiv’s relations with Washington. The first draft of the minerals deal included borderline exploitative terms: the Trump administration wanted Ukraine to immediately divert 50% of its revenue from resource extraction to a $500 billion fund, as “compensation” for the military aid the United States provided in the past.
Having rejected to sign the deal immediately, Zelenskyy “disappointed” the U.S. president, according to National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. In a matter of days, Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war and called Zelenskyy a “dictator.”
Hoping to stave off the cratering of relations with the United States, Ukrainian and U.S. officials then negotiated a version of the minerals agreement that satisfied both sides. The document now mandates that only revenue from future resource extraction ventures would contribute to a jointly owned Ukrainian-U.S. fund, to be used to invest further in extraction projects on Ukrainian soil.
Nevertheless, Washinton resisted including any tangible security guarantees to Ukraine in the deal — a key goal of Zelenskyy’s and his team.
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