President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine will work “swiftly and very sensibly” on an agreement granting the United States access to its natural resources, in an apparent overture to tamp down tensions that had flared with President Trump over the deal.
Kyiv has focused on strengthening its negotiating position as the United States and Russia open talks on ending the war — with or without Ukraine’s involvement. In a flurry of diplomacy on Thursday and Friday, Mr. Zelensky spoke with half a dozen leaders in Europe and Canada to shore up other sources of support.
As he did so, however, Mr. Trump said in a radio interview on Friday that the Ukrainian president did not need to participate in talks intended to end the conflict on his soil.
“I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings to be honest with you, he’s been there for three years,” Mr. Trump told Brian Kilmeade, the Fox News host, adding that he had been watching Mr. Zelensky “negotiate with no cards.”
“And you get sick of it,” Trump said. “You just get sick of it. And I’ve had it.”
Kyiv and Moscow engaged in direct talks early in the invasion but since April of 2022 have negotiated only over prisoner of war exchanges and to return Ukrainian children from Russia.
The idea of trading natural resources for U.S. assistance was first put forward by Ukraine, but Mr. Zelensky balked when the U.S. proposal suggested that Kyiv provide access to profits from 50 percent of the country’s minerals and energy resources. Mr. Zelensky had also objected that the deal included no American security commitments.
Several aides to Mr. Zelensky believe that a new version of the agreement under discussion on Thursday addresses those concerns, and have now advised Mr. Zelensky to sign it, a person familiar with discussions in the Ukrainian government about the U.S. proposal said on Friday. The shift in some Ukrainian officials’ stance on the deal was first reported by Axios.
Talks derailed last week after Mr. Zelensky declined to immediately sign a version presented to him by the U.S. treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, on a visit to Kyiv.
Mr. Trump responded with a broadside against Mr. Zelensky’s moral standing in the conflict, falsely saying Ukrainian leaders started the all-out war that began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky, in turn, said Mr. Trump lived in a “web of disinformation.”
But the U.S. pressure on Kyiv continued. On Thursday, the U.S. national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said in an interview on Fox & Friends that Ukrainian leadership needed “to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal.”
Mr. Zelensky suggested that talks were progressing in a nightly address to Ukrainians on Thursday, after a meeting in Kyiv with the Trump administration’s envoy to Ukraine and Russia, General Keith Kellogg, saying it was “a meeting that restores hope.”
He offered no details on a potential natural resources deal, other than to say that “economy and security must always go hand in hand,” and that his interest was in securing an enduring agreement with the United States.
The Ukrainian government has simultaneously pursued a flurry of diplomacy with Europe, in hopes that Europe might provide security commitments or military aid to fill gaps if the United States withholds support.
Mr. Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials concede that European nations cannot fully replace the full range of military and intelligence assistance the United States provides to Ukraine, but they have been encouraged by discussions of forming a European peacekeeping force to enforce a cease-fire.
On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky spoke by phone with five European leaders, from France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark and Finland, and with the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and on Friday with the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda.
In the nine days since Mr. Trump opened negotiations with Russia in a phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin on Feb. 12, Mr. Zelensky has met or spoken on the phone with European leaders at least nine times. A visit was scheduled for Monday by Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.
And Mr. Macron and the U.K. prime minister, Keir Starmer, will continue to press Ukraine’s case in planned visits to Washington next week, where they are expected to present to the Trump administration what Europe and the United Kingdom can provide Ukraine and to lay out what is still needed from the United States.
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