Kyiv:
Ukraine is ready to sign a historic mineral means agreement with the United States in Washington on Wednesday, according to two senior Ukrainian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko is currently in Washington for the final coordination of the technical details of the agreement, according to the sources.
It was not immediately clear whether the Trump government, which insisted on signing the agreement, was also ready to ink the deal.
Trump has said that he wants the rare earth elements of Ukraine as a condition for further support in his more than three -year war with Russia.
Ukraine has deposits of titanium, which is used for making aircraft wings and other space production. It also has lithium, key to various current battery technologies, and uranium, used for nuclear energy, medical equipment and weapons. Moreover, the graphite and manganese, both used in batteries for electric vehicles.
The conversations were stuck earlier this year after a tense Oval Office meeting in February between the American and Ukrainian leaders.
For Ukraine, the deal is seen as possible important to get future military help from the US.
The Ukrainian cabinet is expected to approve the text of the agreement before the Washington meeting, after which it will be signed by an authorized government representative.
The deal then requires ratification in the Ukrainian parliament before it can come into force.
According to one of the Ukrainian officials, there are several documents involved – including a main agreement and at least two technical agreements that outline the structure and activities of the joint fund.
The official said that the Ukrainian side is generally satisfied with how the agreement has evolved after negotiations between the two teams.
The other high officer expressed the hope that there would be no further changes than the Washington side.
Ukraine has introduced new provisions in the agreement, aimed at discussing earlier concerns that the first American design, presented in March, has preferred the American interests. The negotiations between the two parties have continued steadily since then.
One industrial officer close to the discussions said that more “details and not just statements” were added to the text.
The development came in the midst of rocky progress in Washington's pressure to stop the war.
In Moscow, a senior Kremlin officer said on Wednesday that conquering a deal to end the war in Russia-Ukraine “is far too complex to be done quickly”, because the US is looking forward to bringing momentum to peace efforts and frustration about slow progress.
In the meantime, a nightly Russian drone attack on the second largest city in Ukraine Kharkiv injured at least 45 civilians, officials said. The United Nations reported that the number of Ukrainian civilian casualties in the more than three -year war has risen in recent weeks in the midst of Washington's attempts to make a peace agreement.
Putin wants to answer before he is committed -the -furen
Russian President Vladimir Putin Backs calls for a cease -the Fires before peace negotiations, “but before it is done, it is necessary to answer a few questions and arrange a few nuances,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Putin is also ready for direct conversations with Ukraine without conditions to look for a peace agreement, he added.
“We realize that Washington wants to make rapid progress, but we hope to understand that the Ukrainian crisis scheme is far too complex to be done quickly,” said Peskov during his daily conference meeting with reporters. “There are many details and a range of small nuances that must be solved before a settlement.”
US President Donald Trump has previously expressed frustration about the slow pace of progress in negotiations aimed at stopping the war, which he said he could end in the first 24 hours of his new government in January. Western European leaders have accused Putin of holding on while his troops try to catch more Ukrainian country. Russia has conquered almost a fifth of the territory of Ukraine since the armed forces of Moscow launched a full invasion on February 24, 2022.
Trump reproduces the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for steps that he said he has extended the “murder field” “, and the American leader punished Putin for complicating negotiations with” very bad timing “when launching deadly strikes that had the deadly attacked by the Ukrainian, Ky.
Trump has long rejected the war as a waste of American tax money and lives lost in the conflict. Senior US officials have warned that the administration could give up the peace efforts if it does not see a solution. This can put an end to crucial military aid for Ukraine and heavier economic sanctions against Russia.
We want both parties to move faster
The US Department of Foreign Affairs tried to push both parties again on Tuesday to move faster.
“We are now in a time when concrete proposals have to be delivered by the two parties about how to end this conflict,” spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, the American State Secretary Marco Rubio, quoted, told her.
“How we will continue from here is a decision that now belongs to the president,” she said reporters, with regard to a conversation she had with Rubio. “If there is no progress, we will take a step back as mediators in this process.”
Russia has effectively rejected an American proposal for an immediate and complete cease-fire of 30 days, so that the mobilization effort of Ukraine and Western weapon supplies to Kiev is conditionally stopped.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on Wednesday that Ukraine had only accepted an unconditional ceasefire because it was pushed back on the battlefield, where the larger Russian troops prevail.
“In the context of developments on the site, along the front line where the KYIV regime withdrawn increasingly withdrew, they have made a turn and began to demand an immediate ceasefire without any conditions,” said Lavrov during a briefing in Rio de Janeiro where he was a ministerial meeting of the Brici group of the Brici group of the Brici group of the Brici group.
He also suggested that the promises of Ukraine were the promises of the hot -shipping not credible. Both parties have accused each other of breaking earlier trials. Independent verification of the claims from the battlefield was not possible.
UN says that Ukrainian civilian victims are on the rise
In the meantime, Ukrainian citizens have been killed or injured every day this year in attacks, according to a UN report that will be presented in New York on Tuesday.
The UN Human Rights Office said in the report that in the first three months of this year it had verified 2,641 civil victims in Ukraine. That was almost 900 more than in the same period last year.
Between 1-24 April the civilian casualties in Ukraine also rose by 46% compared to the same weeks in 2024, it said.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia fired Shahed and Decoy drones in Ukraine between Tuesday and Wednesday, mainly in the cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian security service also claimed the Murom instrument Engineering -factory in the Russia Vladimir region in Russia, which caused five explosions and a fire.
The factory to the east of Moscow produces ammunition -loss devices, as well as components and products for the Russian navy and military aviation, a source told at the Bureau told Associated Press. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly speak about the attack.
The claim could not be verified independently.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by Our staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
