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00:00Our Ukrainian officials are suggesting that Kiev has agreed the terms of a
00:04minerals deal with the US and could sign it as early as Friday when President
00:09Zelensky is in Washington. His American counterpart has demanded that Ukraine
00:14give the United States access to its rare earth minerals to compensate for
00:18the billions of dollars worth of wartime aid it has received. Ukraine had asked
00:24for security guarantees from the US as part of any agreement. Let's get some
00:30more details now from Fraser Jackson, he's our correspondent in Washington.
00:35Fraser, it appears we are very close now to getting a deal over the line here.
00:40What more do we know at this stage? So we're still awaiting official
00:45confirmation from the Ukrainians that they have indeed accepted the the terms
00:49of this deal. I'm reaching out to a couple of sources in the Ukrainian
00:53government as well who are still getting back to me but it is widely
00:58reported now by a couple of news agencies citing sources with knowledge
01:03of the deal that this mineral deal between the US and Ukraine is going to
01:07be signed and that Zelensky will be coming here to DC on Friday to sign that
01:11deal. Now the last draft of this deal that we saw was seen by the Axios news
01:16agency and in it the US expresses its desire to keep Ukraine quote free
01:21sovereign and secure. Now it calls for the establishment of what's being called
01:25a reconstruction investment fund that will be co-managed by the US and Ukraine.
01:30In the agreement it says the government of the United States of America intends
01:34to provide a long-term financial commitment to the development of a
01:38stable and economically prosperous Ukraine. It also adds that the fund will
01:42be designed so as to invest in projects in Ukraine and attract investments to
01:47increase development in Ukraine as well especially in areas like mining and
01:52ports as well. But it also suggests that the US will recoup some of its
01:56expenditure that has been related to defending, reconstructing and returning
02:01Ukraine to its pre-war condition. Now of course there's no mention in there at the
02:06moment of security guarantees but it's understood from a couple of sources that
02:10I've spoken to that basically the way this is going to work and that the way
02:14that the Europeans want this to work is that this mineral deal will be the
02:17kind of wider anchor that will keep the United States interested and invested in
02:23Ukraine to ensure that any further aggression from Russia is
02:28not a viable part. So the idea is that they want to get a ceasefire in
02:34place in the immediate term just to stop the fighting at which point there will
02:38be European peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine. Sources that I'm talking to
02:43say that this is still a very very early stage of discussion and that there's not
02:47really much meat on this bone at the moment yet as to how this will look but
02:51of course Vladimir Putin, according to Donald Trump at least, has said that he's
02:56okay with European peacekeepers being on the ground in Ukraine. I think that
03:02came as a surprise to everybody when Trump said that in the Oval Office on
03:05Monday. So there is still some fleshing out of how this deal will actually be
03:11implemented and the meaning of it but the idea here for Ukraine is that they
03:15keep the U.S. interested in staying in Ukraine and that
03:22will stop any kind of Russian aggression. Separately then Fraser, the Kremlin is
03:27saying that it sees potential for cooperation with the U.S. on developing
03:31Russia's large reserves of strategically important rare earth minerals. What more
03:36do we know about that at this stage? Well the Kremlin is of course trying
03:41desperately to rekindle some kind of relationship with America. You can
03:47see that from the rhetoric that the Kremlin has been using over the last
03:50couple of days, especially when they met with the U.S. in Riyadh saying it was the
03:54meeting of two great powers. Well the Russians are trying now to kind of
03:58appeal to the businessman mind of Donald Trump which of course many people will
04:03know is his kind of default setting, the real estate developer, the business
04:07dealer, that is what he prides himself on more than anything. So they're trying to
04:11appeal it to him with a better business proposal effectively by saying that
04:15Russia has more significant rare earth minerals resources than Ukraine does. A
04:21lot of Ukraines are actually also in that war-torn region in the east that
04:25has been occupied by Russian forces at the moment. So Vladimir
04:30Putin then maybe dangling the carrot here before Donald Trump to see whether
04:34he'll bite at this and potentially walk away from the Europeans. But the
04:38Europeans are of course hoping that this deal in Ukraine is enough to make sure
04:41that the U.S. stays on their side and doesn't do any kind of economic dealings
04:46with the Russians. Fraser, thank you so much for joining us with all of that
04:50detail. That's our correspondent in Washington, Fraser Jackson.