MOSCOW (Reuters) – Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday that the signing of a minerals deal between Ukraine and the United States meant U.S. President Donald Trump had forced Kyiv to pay for future U.S. military aid.
The deal, signed in Washington on Wednesday, will give the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals deals and fund investment in Ukraine’s reconstruction.
The Kyiv Post, citing diplomatic sources, said the Trump administration had also told Congress on Wednesday of its intention to green-light the export of defence-related products to Ukraine through direct commercial sales of $50 million or more, the first step of its kind since Trump’s White House return.
Reuters could not immediately confirm that.
“Trump has broken the Kyiv regime to the point where they will have to pay for U.S. aid with mineral resources,” Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on Telegram.
“Now they (Ukrainians) will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country,” he said.
Medvedev, who was president from 2008-2012, once projected the image of a liberal pro-Western moderniser, but has emerged as one of the most outspoken anti-Western hawks since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022.
The minerals agreement was reached at a time when the U.S. says it is growing increasingly frustrated by the failure of Moscow and Kyiv to come to the table for peace talks.
Moscow says it is ready for direct talks with Ukraine and is open to a long-lasting peace settlement, but that the issues at stake are so complex that the process cannot be rushed.
Kyiv says it advocates an immediate unconditional ceasefire for at least 30 days. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he agrees in principle, but that there are many issues that need to be clarified before that can happen.
Putin has announced a three-day ceasefire for May 8-10, when Russia will hold celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.
The Kremlin has said that Russia has enormous mineral wealth itself and has held out the prospect of potential cooperation deals with the U.S. in the Arctic and elsewhere. It has yet to comment on the Ukrainian minerals deal.
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said he thought the deal between Washington and Kyiv would make it harder for Russia to achieve its goals in Ukraine through peace talks because Trump had set up a mechanism to “justify” new spending on the war.
“The U.S. is beginning to see itself as a sort of co-owner of Ukraine. Therefore, it will take a position that it considers pro-Ukrainian,” Markov forecast.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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