Donald Trump has been wading in to the Ukraine war this week, calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” – but today his envoy called talks with the Ukrainian leader “positive”. Listen to our Trump 100 podcast as you scroll.
Friday 21 February 2025 15:28, UK
Donald Trump’s national security advisor is speaking now at a key conservative conference.
Mike Waltz, who was part of the team kicking off talks with Moscow on Tuesday, says he expects Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sign a deal giving the US a chunk of the wealth from Ukraine’s mineral resources.
“Look, here’s the bottom line – President Zelensky is going to sign that deal,” he says at the Conservative Political Action Conference, also known as CPAC.
“And you will see that in the very short term, and that is good for Ukraine.
“What better could you have for Ukraine than to be in an economic partnership with the United States?”
Just ahead of his remarks, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said he has a call with Waltz, during which they discussed “aligning positions”.
The president’s office said Yermak “stressed the importance of maintaining bilateral cooperation and a high level of relations between Ukraine and the United States”, though no other details were given.
Ukrainian minerals have long been coveted by foreign powers, and now Trump wants to access its resources as a form of reparations for the billions of dollars the US has spent supporting the country.
Leaked drafts of an agreement proposed by Washington show the US is pushing for 50% of the revenues from mineral resources in future.
But there are concerns on the Ukrainian side over security guarantees, with the US so far excluding them from talks with Russia and Trump talking about occupied lands remaining out of Ukrainian control.
Ukraine “never provoked this war” and must be at the negotiating table, Ukrainian MP Andrii Zhupanyn has told Sky’s Samantha Washington.
The official said many people were “surprised with the information coming out of Washington” in the past week in which Donald Trump accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being a “dictator”.
“I don’t think many of us expected that,” he said.
He said Europe should be “united and increase its support for Ukraine”.
On comments made by Elon Musk accusing Zelenskyy of running a “disgusting, massive graft machine”, he added: “That’s very disappointing for us. I don’t think he deserved that.
“Ukraine never provoked this war and we are suffering every day.”
Zhupanyn went on to say when it came to a peace deal, Ukraine had to be at the negotiating table.
“We must have a place and Europe must have a place,” he added.
“Only something that includes Ukraine can then be explained to our people.”
Talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy were “extensive and positive”, according to the US envoy for the war.
Yesterday, Keith Kellogg met Zelenskyy in Kyiv amid tensions between Ukraine and the US, as Washington kicked off discussions with Russia without them.
A planned news conference following their meeting was cancelled unexpectedly – which a Ukrainian official said was done at the request of the US.
Zelenskyy said later he had a “good discussion” with Kellogg, but until now we hadn’t heard from the US envoy.
Posting on social media, he wrote: “A long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine.
“Extensive and positive discussions with [Zelenskyy], the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war and his talented national security team.”
His praise of Zelenskyy marks a contrast to Donald Trump’s scathing remarks about the Ukrainian leader, who he labelled a “dictator”.
Even so, our security and defence editor Deborah Haynes reported yesterday there are concerns over how much influence Kellogg has within Trump circles, with a Ukrainian source saying there was a sense he had been sidelined.
What have Trump and Elon Musk been saying?
This week Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator” in a scathing post on Truth Social.
The US president said his Ukrainian counterpart had done a “terrible job” and that he “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
Following the comments, Elon Musk gave the president backing by calling Zelenskyy a “disgusting, massive graft machine feeding off the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers”.
If you were to take Donald Trump’s word for it, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator and has a low approval rating.
That’s what the US president said this week as Washington and Moscow took the first steps in negotiations to end the fighting.
But a lot of what Trump has said about Zelenskyy and the war this week has been wrong, or at least questionable.
We took a look at five key claims he made – here’s how they stand up to scrutiny…
Ukrainian and US negotiators are looking to move past the growing tensions between the nations this week to finalise a deal on critical minerals, Bloomberg News reports.
Officials in Ukraine are discussing the minerals issue with US special envoy Keith Kellogg during his visit to Kyiv, a source has told the American broadcaster.
What do we know so far about the minerals deal?
On Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected US demands for $500bn in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the US had supplied nowhere near that sum so far and offered no specific security guarantees in the agreement.
The Ukrainian leader, who is under major pressure from Trump’s White House, said Washington had supplied his country with $67bn in weapons and $31.5bn in direct budget support throughout the war.
Trump has said he wants $500bn in rare earth minerals from Ukraine to secure Washington’s assistance.
The president’s draft deal would allow the US to take ownership of 50% of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has said this afternoon Volodymyr Zelenskyy should remain committed to cooperation with Donald Trump.
Following a call with the Ukrainian leader, he said the pair had a “candid conversation” and he conveyed how there was “no other way to stop the bloodshed and achieve lasting peace in Ukraine except with the support of the US”.
“I have no doubt that President Trump is guided by a deep sense of responsibility for global stability and peace,” he added.
You can read his full statement here…
This week Trump stunned European leaders with a series of controversial claims about the war in Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The US president’s remarks, which include accusing Ukraine of starting the war, have been widely disputed – with Zelenskyy himself saying Trump is living in a “disinformation bubble”.
The US has told Europe it needs to spend more on defence, while the EU appears to be sidelined from peace talks aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In this episode of The World, Richard and Yalda discuss the most significant foreign policy shift since the Second World War.
Yalda is just back from the Munich Security Conference and gives the inside view on events there, as Richard gauges the reaction of the Ukrainian people.
To get in touch or to share questions for Richard and Yalda, email theworld@sky.uk.
Vladimir Putin is speaking at Moscow’s World Trade Center for the third Future Technologies Forum.
It is unclear if Ukraine will be mentioned but his address comes at a time of heightened tension between the US and Ukraine.
We’ll bring you any important lines from his speech in our coverage – but in the meantime you can watch his address in the stream above.
This week has been dominated by rows between world leaders over the war in Ukraine – with relations between Kyiv and Washington in particular taking a sharp downward turn.
It came as Ukraine was left out of talks on Tuesday between US and Russian officials to explore a possible deal to end the conflict.
Meanwhile, European leaders scrambled to attend a hastily arranged summit in Paris on Monday amid a debate over the role the continent could play in Ukraine’s future.
The UK’s prime minister made an early intervention on Monday when he suggested he was willing to deploy British soldiers to underpin a potential peace deal.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Sir Keir Starmer said: “The UK is ready to play a leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine.
“[This] means being ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.”
However, the idea of sending European forces to Ukraine was not universally welcomed, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk quickly ruling out sending troops from his nation.
The proposal was also shot down by Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who told reporters on Tuesday: “We’ve told the US that deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine, even under other flags, is unacceptable for Russia.”
It came after Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss normalising relations and laying out terms for talks to end the war.
Speaking after, Rubio dismissed complaints about a lack of Ukrainian involvement, telling reporters: “In order for a conflict to end, everyone has to be OK with it.”
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to express frustration later in the day during a visit to Turkey.
He told reporters: “We want no one to decide anything behind our backs… No decision can be made without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine.”
But in a sign of rapidly deteriorating relations between Washington and Kyiv, US President Donald Trump hit back later on Tuesday when asked about the lack of Ukrainian involvement in the talks.
Speaking to reporters, he said Kyiv could have earlier settled the war “very easily” and falsely claimed Zelenskyy had a domestic approval rating of just 4%.
A survey carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology has found that the Ukrainian president had a 57% “trust” rating as of February 2025.
Trump added: “If Ukraine wants a seat at the [negotiating] table, wouldn’t the people have to say it has been a long time since they had an election?”
Trump also appeared to blame Ukraine for starting the war, adding: “Today I heard, ‘oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
On Wednesday relations worsened as Zelenskyy fired back.
He told reporters he was seeing “a lot of disinformation” from Russia.
Zelenskky added: “With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader…. he is living in this disinformation space.”
This prompted a furious response from Trump.
Writing on Truth Social, he said: “A dictator without elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.
“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do…
“I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job”.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin also challenged Zelenskyy, insisting “no one is excluding Ukraine” from talks, and described the reaction from some as being “hysterical”.
He told reporters: “We are not imposing anything on anyone. We are ready, I have already said this a hundred times – if they want, please let these negotiations take place and we will be ready to return to the table.”
European leaders and senior figures, including Starmer and Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, on Wednesday pushed back on Trump’s suggestion that the Ukrainian president was a “dictator”.
The prime minister emphasised that Zelenskyy was a “democratically elected leader”.
However, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz on Thursday added to the row during an interview with Fox News.
He urged Ukraine to “tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal”.
Waltz added: “Certainly this kind of… badmouthing in the press for all the administration has done in his first term as well, and all the United States has done for Ukraine is just, it’s unacceptable.”
It came as Zelenskyy met with the US’s envoy for the war Keith Kellogg – but cancelled a planned press conference involving the pair.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that the US had indicated it would be opposed to describing Russia as an aggressor in a joint statement by G7 nations about the war.
Trump adviser Elon Musk waded into the row on Thursday, writing on X: “[Zelenskyy] is despised by the people of Ukraine, which is why he has refused to hold an election….
“President Trump is right to ignore him and solve for peace independent of the disgusting, massive graft machine feeding off the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.”
It came as the UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Russia of not having an “appetite” for peace.
He added: “We’ve not got anywhere near a negotiated settlement”.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Marco Rubio said a possible meeting between Trump and Putin “would largely depend on whether we can make any progress on ending the war in Ukraine”.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said he intends to tell Donald Trump that it is in the joint interest of Americans and Europeans not to “be weak” in the face of Vladimir Putin.
In a one-hour question-and-answer session on social media, Macron said he will tell Trump: “You can’t be weak in the face of President Putin.
“It’s not you, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest. How can you then be credible in the face of China if you’re weak in the face of Putin?”
Macron also suggested Trump’s strategy to create “uncertainty” in talks with Russia could actually make Western allies stronger in these talks.
The French leader added that he would seek to persuade Trump that US interests and Europeans’ interests are the same, telling him: “If you let Russia take over Ukraine, it would be unstoppable.”
Trump’s recent statement on Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have concerned European allies and Ukrainian officials.
Macron will travel to Washington to meet Trump on Monday.
And Sir Keir Starmer will also be heading to Washington next week.
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