The situation at an overview: Ukraine and the USA promise raw materials deal

Despite considerable tensions between Ukraine and the USA, the two governments signed a declaration of intent to a raw material agreement after a long struggle. However, the content of the agreement provided by US President Donald Trump and the Ukrainian Vice Governor Julia Swryrydenko must still be clarified – and may have further conflict potential. This week he also expects feedback from Moscow to a possible peace agreement with Ukraine, said Trump. In advance, however, Russia already knew that a ceasefire was currently unrealistic.

Even if the text of the raw material agreement, with which the USA is to be given rare earths and other valuable resources from Ukraine, still has to be completed: “Today, a step towards a joint economic partnership agreement was taken with the United States,” announced the Ukrainian Minister of Economic Affairs Swrydenko on Thursday evening via Facebook. The agreement enables significant investments, the modernization of the infrastructure and a partnership that is advantageous for both sides. It is an investment in the future for free, sovereign and safe Ukraine.

Will the agreement be sealed next week?

Trump announced the signing for next week, but did not give any details of the content. After the signing, the two parliaments still have to ratify the document according to Swrydenko. The Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj had announced the declaration of intent as an intermediate step into a binding agreement on which lawyers were still working.

At the end of February, the signing of a framework agreement for joint raw material reduction after a publicly held dispute between Trump, whose Vice JD Vance and Selenskyj failed in Washington. The US President massively puts the country attacked by Russia under pressure. He looks at potential profits from the reduction of metals in the group of rare earths as compensation for the United States military aid and wants to enforce the closeness to peace with Russia as quickly as possible.

Russia’s UN representative: ceasefire is unrealistic

Russia again gave hopes for an early silence of weapons. Already the agreement of the two warring parties to stop attacks on energy facilities in the respective neighboring country for 30 days did not work, said the Russian UN representative Wassilij Nagsja in New York. “Under these circumstances, it is simply unrealistic to talk about an armistice now.” The question of compliance with such a ceasefire is also unclear.

Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of attacks on energy systems during the limited ceasefire, which had been announced after a phone call to Trump’s phone call with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin on March 18.

At night, both sides covered again with air raids. According to the city administration, a building was hit in the northeastern Sumy and a person was killed. 40 injuries from the eastern Ukrainian city of Charkiw were reported in a rocket strike in a residential building. According to reports, explosions were also heard in suburbs of the capital Kiev and in the South Ukrainian industrial city of Dnipro. The governor of the Russian Rostow area said that the air defense had intercepted and destroyed enemy drones without being victims or damage. The information on both sides could not be checked independently.

Selenskyj criticizes Trump’s special envoys

In Paris, Europeans, Ukrainians and Americans had advised hours on the end of the war on Thursday. According to French information, it was the first time that representatives of the three sides met for such conversations. According to this, all important points came on the table that should be part of a peace agreement. Germany was represented with the foreign and security policy advisor to the managing federal government, Jens Plötner. In addition to Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, Trump’s special invaded Steve Witkoff, who had met Putin in St. Petersburg last week, also took part for the US government.

Selenskyj thanked the French President Emmanuel Macron for his efforts, but criticized that Witkoff represented Russian positions after his meeting with Putin. He emphasized that the Ukrainian delegation had only the mandate in Paris to talk about a ceasefire – not about the waiver of areas required by Moscow. The details of the consultations were not public. Next week, Ukrainians, Europeans and US representatives should meet again in the same format as it said from Paris.

Trump’s government is driving a rapprochement with Moscow and seems to be more inclined to put Ukraine under pressure than the aggressor Russia. On the other hand, Germany, France and Great Britain, like other European countries, pursue the approach of making Ukraine as strong as possible before negotiations and supporting them militarily.

Taurus missiles remain the dispute

The possible delivery of German Taurus marching aircraft with a high range and punch to Ukraine is particularly delicate. If these are used against infrastructure goals in Russia, “then Germany will be considered to be direct participation in combat acts on the side of the Kiev regime with all the consequences for Germany that result from it,” threatened the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Sacharova. The designated new Chancellor Friedrich Merz should consider that.

In a television interview on Sunday, the CDU chairman opened openly to deliver the marching missile with a range of 500 kilometers in consultation with European partners to Ukraine. He also said that destruction of the Russian bridge on the annexed Black Sea Peninsula could use Crimea of ​​Ukraine. Taurus is considered a suitable weapon for this.

The outgoing Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has always rejected the requests of Ukraine for taurus deliveries. His main argument was that Moscow would then consider Germany to be a war party because Bundeswehr soldiers should be involved in the target programming. But this is denied by the manufacturer and experts.

On the question of whether in the future federal government of the Chancellor has to decide on the possible delivery of taurus rockets, SPD boss Lars Klingbeil told the newspapers of the Funke Mediengruppe: “Important foreign policy decisions are made in a government. There is also no uniform position in the Union.”