Ukraine and the US said they were ready to sign a minerals deal, amid reports that a last-minute obstacle injected uncertainty into the timing.“Our side is ready to sign. The Ukrainians decided last night to make some last-minute changes,” US treasury secretary Scott Bessent told reporters. “We’re sure that they will reconsider that and we are ready, if they are.”
Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, is on her way to the US to sign the minerals deal,according to a senior source in the Ukrainian presidency. Ukraine’s prime minister, Denis Shmyhal, said on Wednesday that the reworked deal would be signed within the next 24 hours and would have to be ratified by the Ukrainian parliament.
But later reports claimed the US was pushing Ukraine to sign additional documents, but that Kyiv felt they were not ready yet.The Trump administration urged Ukraine to sign all three documents connected to the deal, Politico reported. A source told the outlet: “All three documents need to be signed today, but the Ukrainians are trying to reopen terms which have already been agreed upon as part of the package — this will be up to the Ukrainians, as the US is ready to sign. The US told Svyrydenko not to travel to Washington on Wednesday unless the agreements were finalised, according to the outlet.
Vladimir Putin said some small groups of Ukrainian soldiers were still holed up in basements and hideouts in Russia’s western Kursk region.Speaking at an event in Moscow on Wednesday, the Russian leader said radio intercepts suggested that the few Ukrainians left behind were asking commanders to urgently evacuate them to safety.
The EU is preparing a “plan B” on how to keep economic sanctions against Russia should the US abandon Ukraine peace talks and seek rapprochement with Moscow,according to the bloc’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas. “We see signs that they are contemplating whether they should leave Ukraine and not try to get a deal with the Russians because it’s hard,” Kallas told the Financial Times.
Russia and North Korea have begun construction of a road bridge between the two countries as part of an effort to strengthen their strategic partnership,Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, said. It comes after South Korean lawmakers said about 600 North Korean troops have been killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, held a call on Wednesday during which the Ukrainian leader congratulated Carney on his victory in the Canadian federal elections on Monday.Zelenskyy, in a post on X, said he and Carney discussed steps that could “bring us closer to a full, unconditional ceasefire and a dignified peace.”
The Kremlin claimed that president Vladimir Putin was open to peace despite its continuing aggression on Ukraine,but stressed that the conflict is so complicated that the rapid progress that Washington wants is difficult to achieve, Reuters reported. Kremlin spokespersonDmitry Peskovinsisted that Putin “remains open to political and diplomatic methods of resolving this conflict” started byRussia. But news agency TASS quoted Peskov as saying that the root causes of the war were too complex to be resolved in one day. After the Kremlin’s remark, Ukrainian foreign ministerAndrii Sybihasaid Kyiv was ready for peace talks in any format if Moscow signed up to an unconditional ceasefire, Reuters noted.