Moscow (Reuters) – The senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday that the signing of a mineral agreement between Ukraine and the United States meant that US President Donald Trump had forced kyiv to pay the future American military aid.
The agreement, signed in Washington on Wednesday, will give the United States preferential access to the new Ukrainian mineral agreements and will finance investments in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The Kyiv Post, citing diplomatic sources, said that the Trump administration had also informed the Congress of its intention to inform green the export of defense products in Ukraine on Wednesday thanks to direct commercial sales of $ 50 million or more, the first stage of its kind since the return of Trump's White House.
Reuters could not confirm it immediately.
“Trump has broken the kyiv regime to the point where they will have to pay for help in the United States with mineral resources,” said Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now vice-president of the Russian Security Council on Telegram.
“Now they (Ukrainians) will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a missing country,” he said.
Medvedev, which was president from 2008 to 2012, once projected the image of a liberal pro-Western modernizer, but has become one of the most frank-War Hawks since the start of the Russia War in Ukraine in 2022.
The mineral agreement was concluded at a time when the United States says it is increasingly frustrated by the failure of Moscow and kyiv to come to the table for peace talks.
Moscow says that it is ready for direct talks with Ukraine and is open to a lasting peace regulation, but that the problems at stake are so complex that the process cannot be precipitated.
Kyiv says that it recommends an immediate unconditional ceasefire for at least 30 days. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was in principle in principle, but that there are many problems that must be clarified before this may happen.
Putin announced a three-day ceasefire from May 8 to 10, when Russia organized celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
The Kremlin said that Russia had enormous mineral wealth itself and has held the prospect of potential cooperation with the United States in the Arctic and elsewhere. He has not yet commented on the agreement of Ukrainian minerals.
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin advisor, said that he thought that the agreement between Washington and kyiv would make Russia more difficult for Russia to achieve its objectives in Ukraine thanks to peace talks because Trump had set up a mechanism to “justify” new expenses in the war.
“The United States is starting to consider itself a kind of co-owner of Ukraine. Therefore, it will take the position it considers pro-Ukrainian,” predicts Markov.
(Report by Reuters; writing by Andrew Osborn; edition by Mark Trevelyan)
