Washington-Kyiv deal absolves Ukraine of past ‘debt’ for aid, but does not give security guarantees against further Russian aggression.
United States Vice President JD Vance has said his administration sees no end to the war in Ukraine, despite preparations in Kyiv to ratify a minerals deal with Washington.
Vance told Fox News on Thursday that the Ukraine war prompted by Russia’s invasion of the country in 2022 was “not going to end any time soon”.
The comments came a day after Ukraine signed a deal granting the US priority access to its minerals, which, although it stopped short of offering security guarantees, has raised hopes in Kyiv and Europe that US support could be revived and Ukrainian security increased.
“It’s going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict,” Vance said in the interview, referring to Russia and Ukraine. “It’s not going anywhere … It’s not going to end any time soon.”
Ukrainian legislator Yaroslav Zheleznyak said on Telegram on Friday that parliament would vote on May 8 to ratify the minerals deal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted on Thursday that the deal, which was almost derailed after a fiery exchange with Vance and President Donald Trump in February, was “a truly equal agreement”.
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The deal absolves Ukraine from earlier US demands that it cover the repayment of billions of dollars in military aid supplied by Washington since Russia invaded in February 2022.
It does not give any specific US security commitments, as Ukraine was seeking. However, Washington argues that boosting US business interests in Ukraine would help deter Russia.
‘Still far apart’
Trump has insisted that he will broker a ceasefire, but his administration has warned that it could walk away should Russia and Ukraine continue to launch attacks on each other.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Thursday that the two countries were “closer, but they’re still far apart”.
Meanwhile, hostilities persist. The Ukrainian air force said on Friday that Russia launched 150 drones overnight.
Strikes on the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia left 29 people wounded, according to regional Governor Ivan Fedorov, writing on Telegram.
Two men were wounded in a drone attack in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, with fires breaking out at two locations, Governor Sergiy Lysak said on Telegram.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defences destroyed 121 Ukrainian drones, the majority over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014.