Merhat Sharipzhan and Ray Furlong
The White House national security adviser said that U.S. President Donald Trump is “obviously very frustrated” with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and urged the Ukrainian president to reach an agreement soon granting the United States access to Ukraine’s critical minerals.
The remarks from Michael Waltz came after Zelenskyy and Trump traded sharp criticism in recent days, with Trump calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” and suggesting he started the war with Russia — comments that caused concern in Ukraine and Europe and prompted pushback from some senior U.S. Republican lawmakers.
A day earlier, Zelenskyy rejected a proposal that would reportedly hand the United States $500 billion in mineral wealth, including rare-earth elements, as a form of payment for U.S. military and financial support for Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion, which enters its fourth year next week.
“He needs to come back to the table,” Waltz said at a press conference at the White House on February 20.
Zelenskyy has pointed out that U.S. wartime aid so far was far less than that amount and that the U.S. proposal did not offer concrete security guarantees.
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