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Trump doesn’t ‘like the bombing’ and has called on Moscow to stop, after 20 were killed in a devastating strike on Kryvyi Rih
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A Ukrainian team will visit Washington this week for crunch talks on a minerals deal, the first visit since the deal collapsed in dramatic fashion five weeks ago.
Volodymyr Zelensky was set to sign a framework agreement in late February before he was booted out of the White House, when a furious Donald Trump berated the Ukrainian president for not being thankful enough for US war assistance.
Since then, teams from Kyiv and Washington have been working to hash out a revised agreement – and to rebuild a broken relationship.
Washington has proposed a more expansive minerals deal which could give it access to valuable mineral resources, including titanium, lithium, and uranium, according to economy minister Yuliia Svyrydenko.
But the deal has not yet been agreed by Ukraine and it is unclear exactly how close the two sides are to reaching an agreement.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump has urged Russia to stop bombing Ukraine, after a ballistic missile strike in Kryvyi Rih killed 20, including nine children.,
“We are talking to Russia. We would like them to stop,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One. “I don’t like the bombing, the bombing goes on and on, and every week thousands of young people being killed.”
Almost no countries were spared from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs; even small, uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean were included in the exhaustive list. But one country was notably missing: Russia.
One of the United States’ largest adversaries was omitted from the list of countries slapped with even the 10 percent baseline tariff – a move that raised some eyebrows given Trump’s previously friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But other countries, including the uninhabited Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which have a population of 59 and Svalbard and Jan Mayen, islands in the Arctic Circle with approximately 2,000 people, were hit with tariffs.
Ariana Baio writes:
Ukraine will send a team to Washington next week to begin negotiations on a new draft of a deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko told The Associated Press.
“The new draft agreement from the U.S. shows that the intention to create a fund or jointly invest remains,” Svyrydenko said Saturday, during a trip to northern Ukraine.
The delegation from Kyiv will include representatives from the Ministries of Economy, Foreign Affairs, Justice and Finance.
Full report here:
Russia claimed it had captured the village of Basivka in Ukraine’s Sumy oblast in March this year, but Ukrainian officials have now denied the report, calling it part of a “disinformation campaign”.
While Moscow said the move could disrupt Ukrainian supply lines, Kyiv confirmed ongoing border clashes but insisted its forces were repelling Russian assault groups.
“Russia continues its disinformation campaign regarding the seizure of settlements in Sumy Oblast or the breakthrough of the border,” border guard spokesperson Andrii Demchenko told Ukrainian Pravda.
A Ukrainian drone damaged Russian railway tracks in the southwest Krasnodar region, local authorities said on Monday.
“There were no casualties, and no fire occurred,” the administration of the region said on Telegram.
Russia’s defence ministry earlier reported that its air defences shot down19 Ukrainian drones overnight, four of which were over the Krasnodar region.
Munira Raji writes:
Ukraine is often recognised for its vast agricultural lands and industrial heritage, but beneath its surface lies one of the world’s most remarkable geological formations, the “Ukrainian Shield”.
This massive, exposed crystalline rock formed over 2.5 billion years ago, stretches across much of Ukraine. It represents one of Earth’s oldest and most stable continental blocks.
The formation has undergone multiple episodes of mountain building, the formation and movement of magma and other change throughout time.
These geological processes created favourable geological conditions for forming several mineral deposits including lithium, graphite, manganese, titanium and rare earth elements.
All these are now critical for modern industries and the global green energy transition.
Ukraine has deposits containing 22 of 34 critical minerals identified by the European Union as essential for energy security. This positions Ukraine among the world’s most resource-rich nations.
Restarting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — currently occupied by Russia — would be unsafe and extremely difficult under wartime conditions, according to Ukraine’s nuclear energy chief, Petro Kotin.
He warned that restarting even one reactor during the war is “impossible” due to a lack of cooling water, personnel, and power.
If Ukraine regains control, it could take two months to two years to safely bring the plant back online after full demilitarisation and safety checks, the chief executive of Energoatom said, according to The Guardian.
Russia has said it intends to restart the plant when conditions allow, but experts have raised serious safety concerns, especially given the degraded infrastructure, risk of mines, and untrained staff.
In February this year, Alexey Likhachev, head of Russian nuclear operator Rosatom, said it would be restarted when “military and political conditions allow”.
Ukraine’s minerals have become central to global geopolitics, with the US president, Donald Trump, seeking a deal with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to access them.
But what are these minerals exactly and why are they so sought after?
Ukraine is often recognised for its vast agricultural lands and industrial heritage, but beneath its surface lies one of the world’s most remarkable geological formations, the “Ukrainian Shield”.
This massive, exposed crystalline rock formed over 2.5 billion years ago, stretches across much of Ukraine. It represents one of Earth’s oldest and most stable continental blocks.
Munira Raji reports:
Russian forces are losing an average of 146 soldiers, one tank and two armoured combat vehicles pieces per square kilometre claimed of Ukrainian territory in 2025, the Ukrainian military has said.
The calculations, carried out by the Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, are based on the losses suffered by Moscow’s forces on the eastern front alone, during the first quarter of the year, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
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