Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy hails ‘good progress’ on minerals deal talks

Minerals deal negotiators have made “good progress”, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Wednesday. A senior official with knowledge of the negotiations told Agence France-Presse that newer drafts of the US-Ukraine accord appeared not to recognise previous US military aid as a debt owed by Ukraine, adding that talks were moving forward “quite fast”. That assessment echoed a report by Bloomberg News that said Washington had eased a demand that Kyiv pay for aid already delivered since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“The basic legal stuff is almost finalised, and then, if everything moves as quickly and constructively, the agreement will bring economic results to both our countries,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address on Wednesday. The Trump administration has demanded some sort of deal giving the US a large share of critical minerals or what Donald Trump calls “rare earths” and other Ukrainian natural resources in return for military aid. Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine will not recognise previous aid approved under the Biden administration as a loan requiring repayment, but he expects to be paying the US upfront going forward.

A mass attack of Russian “Shahed” drones killed a young woman and an elderly woman and injured at least 16 on Wednesday in Dnipro city, said officials. In the Kharkiv region, the governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said a Russian missile attack injured two people in the town of Izium.

Russian attacks in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed one person and wounded three more on Wednesday in an apparent so-called double-tap strike, officials said. Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the region, said Russian attacks had continued as rescue workers arrived on the scene.

Ukraine said on Wednesday it had detained nine people including five teenagers aged between 14 and 15 on suspicion of preparing sabotage attacks on behalf of Russian security services. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said some of the suspects were planning to plant explosives near residential buildings or railway lines, including with improvised explosive devices, adding agents had seized more than 30kg of explosives. The SBU in March accused Russia of blowing up two teenage boys it had recruited to make bombs and plant them near a Ukrainian railway station.

The Kremlin on Wednesday refused to say when a supposed 30-day moratorium on strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure would end – or whether it would be extended. Putin said on 18 March that he had ordered his army to halt such attacks for 30 days but Kyiv has accused Moscow of continuing them.

The former governor of Russia’s Kursk region and his ex-deputy have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling over $12m of funds earmarked for border defences against Ukraine, authorities said on Wednesday. Alexei Smirnov, 51, and Alexei Dedov, 48, were in charge when Ukrainian troops stormed across the border in August 2024, successfully mounting the biggest ground assault on Russian territory since the second world war. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in December replaced Smirnov with Alexander Khinshtein.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, will on Thursday meet Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Donald Trump’s Russia envoy, Steve Witkoff, the Élysée Palace has said. The US state department said they would discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

Latvian lawmakers voted on Wednesday to quit a treaty banning anti-personnel mines so the Baltic country can reinforce its security against Russia. “Withdrawal from the Ottawa convention will give our armed forces room for manoeuvre in the event of a military threat to use all possible means to defend our citizens,” said Inara Murniece, chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee. The decision, a direct consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, will come into effect six months after Latvia formally notifies the UN.

Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland have also announced plans to renounce the landmine treaty. The International Committee of the Red Cross has called it “a dangerous setback for the protection of civilians in armed conflict”. Lithuania last month quit another treaty banning cluster bombs, also citing the threat posed by Russia, alarming human rights groups.