James Waterhouse
Ukraine correspondent in Kyiv

Image source, Reuters

President Zelensky says he hopes an initial mineral agreement with the US “will lead to further deals”, but confirmed no American security guarantees have been agreed yet. The deal was referred to as more of a “framework”.

He refers to a jointly owned fund where 50% of Ukraine’s natural resource revenues would be contributed, but adds that it was “too early to talk about money”.

He also says his team pressed the Americans to include a line about support for security guarantees, although nothing concrete has been decided yet.

“I wanted to have a sentence on security guarantees for Ukraine, and it’s important that it’s there,” he adds.

On Donald Trump’s previous demands that Ukraine repay the billions of dollars’ worth of military aid the US had supplied to date, Zelensky says the deal wouldn’t see Ukraine “repay 10 cents”.

Ukraine’s leader says that if he visits the White House on Friday, he will be “very direct” by asking whether America will continue supporting Ukraine or not.

The BBC asked Zelensky whether he’d walk away from the agreement if Trump did not offer the security guarantees he wanted, to which he replied, “I want to find a Nato path or something similar,” adding: “If we don’t get security guarantees, we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing.”