LAST UPDATE | 20 Feb 2025

THE US IS trying to force Ukraine’s hand to sign a deal that would give the US access to large quantities of Ukraine’s minerals, with a security advisor for US President Donald Trump saying that Ukraine needs to ‘tone down’ its ‘pushback’ against the US.

At the same time, the EU’s top diplomat has said she had initially thought US President Donald Trump had confused Volodymyr Zelensky with Vladimir Putin when he called the Ukrainian leader a “dictator” this week.

“First when I heard this, I was like, oh, he must be mixing the two, because clearly Putin is the dictator,” Kaja Kallas told reporters in Johannesburg.

In a post on his Truth Social platform Wednesday, Trump wrote that Zelensky was a “dictator without elections”.

Zelensky’s five-year term expired last year but Ukrainian law does not require elections during war-time.

“Zelensky is an elected leader in fair and free elections,” Kallas said in a briefing after attending a meeting of G20 foreign ministers.

The constitutions of many countries allow for elections to be suspended during war-time in order to focus on the conflict, she said.

Russia, which attacked Ukraine in 2022, could choose to hold free elections but “they are afraid of democracy expanding, because in democracy, the leaders are held accountable,” the EU foreign policy chief said.

“It’s literally from the dictator’s handbook.”

Ukraine-US talks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met today with US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv to discuss a potential path to ending Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

A joint press conference that had been planned with Zelenskyy and Kellogg before the meeting was cancelled on short notice.

Shortly before the pair were due to meet, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said on Fox News: “We’re getting all this pushback… they need to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal.”

Walz was referring to a proposed agreement that would give the US access to vast amounts of Ukrainian natural resources as Trump insists on getting a return on American aid sent to Kyiv as it fights off a Russian invasion.

Zelenskyy rejected that deal over the weekend, arguing that it does not offer his country security guarantees three years into the war.

Waltz described the minerals deal as “the best security guarantee they could ever hope for, much more than another pallet of ammunition,” arguing it would see the United States invested in the country.

Trump has rattled Ukraine and its European backers by opening talks with Russia that they fear could force Ukraine to capitulate to the Kremlin.

Ukraine was not invited to talks in Saudi Arabia this week between Moscow and Washington as they moved to sideline both Ukraine and Europe.

In the days since Zelenskyy rejected the minerals deal, Trump has savaged him as a “dictator” while the Ukrainian leader has warned the US president is living in a Russian “disinformation” bubble in a bitter break between the one-time allies.

“There’s obviously a lot of frustration here,” Waltz said on Fox.

When asked if he thought the dispute was “reconcilable,” Waltz responded: “I think so… to say that we’re going to change the nature of our aid going forward is, I don’t think should offend anyone.”

He also denied that Ukraine has been cut out of Trump’s talks with Russia over ending the war, insisting that there was “plenty of engagement and dialogue” with Kyiv as well as European allies.

“This is a common sense plan. They may not like it but we’re going to drive it forward and everybody will stop squawking when the fighting ends,” Waltz said.

He said Washington and Moscow’s interests were “aligned in stopping the war… We’re going to move forward full speed ahead to drive this war to an end and then we can talk about broader geo-strategic relationships.”