{"id":135676,"date":"2025-04-30T15:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T15:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-kyiv-determined-to-sign-us-minerals-deal-today-but-talks-hit-last-minute-hurdle-sky-news\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T15:30:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T15:30:49","slug":"ukraine-war-latest-kyiv-determined-to-sign-us-minerals-deal-today-but-talks-hit-last-minute-hurdle-sky-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-kyiv-determined-to-sign-us-minerals-deal-today-but-talks-hit-last-minute-hurdle-sky-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war latest: Kyiv 'determined' to sign US minerals deal today – but talks hit 'last-minute hurdle' – Sky News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The minerals deal that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been due to sign on that disastrous White House visit could be inked within a day after final details are worked out, Ukraine’s prime minister has said. Listen to The World podcast – on Trump’s apparent volte-face on Ukraine – as you scroll.
Wednesday 30 April 2025 16:25, UK
Donald Trump said at virtually every campaign rally ahead of the US election last year that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. 
“Well, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point,” Trump told Time magazine last week<\/a>.
In this timeline, we take a look at his quest to end the war – 101 days and counting… 
Before Russia’s invasion in February 2022, minerals made up 6.1% of Ukraine’s GDP (gross domestic product) and 30% of its exports.
It is home to various “critical” minerals, so-called for their use in technology manufacturing, defence systems, and green energy, with examples including copper, nickel, lithium, and titanium.
Back in February, Sky’s economics and data editor Ed Conway<\/a> looked into the nuts and bolts of Ukraine’s mineral resources. Watch his report below.
There are various reports on when the minerals deal could be signed, and if it could be inked in the next 24 hours as Ukraine’s prime minister has said (see 2.43pm post).
In the past few minutes, The Financial Times<\/a> said the US and Ukraine have run into some “last-minute hurdles” following a dispute over what had been agreed in overnight negotiations.
Problems arose, the report says, when Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister was told on her way to Washington by US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s team that she should “be ready to sign all agreements, or go back home”.
The Americans want the Ukrainians to sign both the framework deal and a detailed fund agreement that would complete the full minerals deal today, said two Ukrainian officials.
This could not be done, they said, because the fund agreement must be ratified by Ukraine’s parliament before it can be signed. 
Events at the negotiating table continue to move at a rapid pace. 
This morning, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sent several mixed messages regarding Moscow’s readiness for peace when speaking to Sky News and other outlets.
After saying peace would not come as quickly as Donald Trump wanted, he said a deal would need to be struck with Kyiv and not Washington – but also that Moscow was incredibly grateful to the US for trying to mediate. 
He also said Putin was ready for direct talks with Ukraine immediately, but also that lots of “little details” needed to be addressed first. 
Confused? Here’s Sky’s Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett<\/a><\/b>, who spoke with Peskov this morning, to unpack it for you…  
A bit more on the minerals deal now, with a Ukrainian source telling Sky News that Kyiv is “determined to sign the deal today”. 
The source says negotiating teams have done a good job, and that the deal was actually finalised on the whole yesterday, 
“It turned out quite well there – an equal agreement, a reconstruction fund is being set up, there will be investments in infrastructure and the development of various industries, and in general, we can say that this is the highest level of economic partnership between our countries,” they said. 
The source adds there is no mention in the agreement that Ukraine has to return previous financial support given to it from  the US.
That could come as a significant relief to Kyiv, with Donald Trump having said on multiple occasions he wants American financial contributions back. 
Ukraine and the United States could sign a minerals deal within the next 24 hours after the final details are worked out, Ukraine’s prime minister has said. 
The agreement, which has been reworked, has become a “real partnership deal”, Denys Shmyhal, the prime minister, said. 
The terms could consider future US aid as part of contributions to the fund, he said in televised remarks. 
It’s been suggested the deal could be signed as early as tonight. 
As we reported in our previous post, Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister is on her way to Washington to sign the deal, according to sources quoted by the Reuters news agency. 
The exact terms of the deal remain unclear, with the deal hitting several stumbling blocks – including a now infamous bust-up between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump at the White House – which have delayed it. 
Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister is on her way to Washington to sign a much-discussed minerals deal, sources have told the Reuters news agency.
Yulia Svyrydenko is heading to the US now, the source said.
“I think maybe late evening Kyiv time, the deal there can be signed,” the source said. 
Kyiv and Washington signed a memorandum in the middle of this month, saying they aimed to complete talks by 26 April and sign the deal as soon as possible.
Terms have not yet been made public, but we’ll be across this story as it develops. 
For the past hour, security and defence Michael Clarke<\/a> has been answering your questions on the Ukraine war. 
His first question was… 
Zelenskyy has said Russia is preparing something in Belarus – what could this be?
hopethingswillgetbettersoon<\/b>
For context, it comes after Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested Russia was “preparing something” in Belarus this summer.
“This summer Russia is preparing something there, under cover of military exercises,” the Ukrainian leader told a summit in Poland yesterday, without giving details.
“This is how its new attacks usually start,” Zelenskyy added.  
Russia and Belarus will hold joint military exercises in Belarus in the coming months. 
Clarke says “it may be a northern offensive which the Russians are thinking about”.
However, he’s keen to point out that he thinks it’s highly unlikely that Belarusian troops would enter the fray themselves. 
“The argument is that the Russians have got 65-70,000 troops there – but they normally have quite a lot of troops there,” he says. 
“It is now the campaign season, the weather is favourable to an attack from there – it’s plausible,” he says, but adds he doesn’t personally see something big coming from there based on the material he’s seen. 
However, he reminds us that the last major joint exercises between Belarus and Russia, known as Zapad-2021, were held six months before Russia invaded in Ukraine in 2022. 
Vladimir Putin was there to watch proceedings at the Mulino training ground in the Russian region of Nizhny Novgorod…
Clarke says: “The Russians, working on Belarusian territory, will certainly bring troops to an exercise. But whether they will become assault troops is still not clear – it’s plausible, but it’s not the most likely thing to happen at the moment.”
He also says that while the Russians have learned a tremendous amount from the war in Ukraine, Clarke says: “To my mind, they still can’t put together an aggressive combined arms operation of the type needed for a very strong offensive – it’s just not the way they do things.”
Read Clarke’s answers to all of today’s questions here<\/a>.
A US-Ukraine minerals deal could be signed as soon as today, Bloomberg and the Financial Times report. 
The exact terms of the deal remain unclear, with the deal hitting several stumbling blocks – including a now infamous bust-up between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump at the White House – which have delayed it. 
The report is unconfirmed, and we’ve seen suggestions a signing is imminent on several occasions before. 
Security and defence analyst Michael Clarke<\/a><\/b> is back answering your Ukraine war questions live.
Watch and follow the Q&A here:
Be the first to get Breaking News<\/span>
Install the Sky News app for free<\/p>\n

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The minerals deal that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been due to sign on that disastrous White House visit could be inked within a day after final details are worked out, Ukraine’s prime minister has said. Listen to The World podcast – on Trump’s apparent volte-face on Ukraine – as you scroll.Wednesday 30 April 2025 16:25, UKDonald […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":135677,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}