Zelenski states that Trump asks to keep 50 % of Ukrainian natural resources

The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, reported Wednesday that the United States has asked to keep half of the natural resources available to Ukraine without offering in return in writing guarantees about the continuity of their support, or security.

«The document was not clear, it was only clear in one thing, that we had to give 50 % of everything specified in the document,» Zelenski said in a press conference held in kyiv, referring to a draft prepared by Washington.

The Ukrainian President added that the United States proposal did not contain any reference to security guarantees in exchange for these resources, as kyiv expected.

Zelenski was willing to publish the proposal presented by the USA «I don’t think that helps our relations,» said Ukrainian President, according to the Ukrainian public agency, Ukrinform.

The document in question was presented to Zelenski a week ago by the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, during his visit to kyiv. Zelenski asked for a few days to respond to the proposal, which has not been accepted for the moment by kyiv.

According to sources with access to the document to various media, the United States requested in the proposal that Ukraine shares half of their rare earths and other natural resources with the USA.

The idea was made public by President Donald Trump shortly after assuming power in the United States. Trump expects Ukraine to pay with his natural resources the amount of the aid offered to kyiv by the US by 500,000 million dollars the benefit that Washington must obtain from the Ukrainian natural resources.

In the same press conference held on Wednesday in kyiv, Zelenski refuted the figures on the amount of aid to the US that President Trump mentioned.

“We have to clarify those numbers. Unfortunately, they do not match reality. The war has cost us 320,000 million (dollars); 120,000 million covered by Ukrainian taxpayers and 200,000 million supplied by the US and EU, especially to military aid, ”said Zelenski.

The Ukrainian President explained that the United States contribution has been 67,000 million dollars in military assistance and 31,500 in direct aid to the Ukrainian budget.

EFE