President Donald Trump welcomes Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House in Washington on Feb. 28, 2025. (Ben Curtis/AP)
Concern is growing in Moscow that Russia could lose its edge in talks with the United States over the Ukraine war now that Kyiv finally signed an economic partnership agreement giving Washington preferential access to future Ukrainian minerals deals.
Russian officials poured scorn on the deal this week, with one senator, Alexei Pushkov saying it represented “another major step toward the colonization of Ukraine.” Deputy head of the parliament’s international affairs committee Alexei Chepa echoed him, saying the deal had further increased Ukraine’s dependency on the United States.
“The deal in essence has turned Ukraine into a mineral colony,” he told Russian reporters.
But behind the scenes, nervousness is rising among some members of the Russian elite that the deal could represent a new alignment between the U.S. and Ukraine which could close a window of opportunity for Russia to secure a peace deal over Ukraine on advantageous terms.
The arrival of the Trump administration had brought a dramatic turnaround in the U.S. approach to the conflict, with personal phone calls between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as well as numerous statements from U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff that leaned more toward the Russian view of the conflict. Trump had also been critical of generous U.S. military support for Ukraine.
Any reversal of these warming U.S.-Russian ties could cast a cloud over Putin’s May 9 celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, and increase the pressure on Russia to agree to a more substantial ceasefire, a Russian official and analysts said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hailed the minerals agreement Thursday as showing the “Russian leadership that there is no daylight between the Ukrainian people and the American people, between our goals.” It would allow Trump to negotiate with Russia on a stronger basis, he said.
The deal “worsens the situation for Russia,” said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst. “A key reason for tensions between Trump and Zelensky has been removed.”
Even though the agreement signed Wednesday paints future cooperation in only vague terms and does not provide any concrete security guarantees, symbolically at least “it turns out that the U.S. is taking on a certain duty for defending Ukraine since it is becoming an owner of Ukraine,” Markov said.
The agreement establishes the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, which will be the depository for any future revenue from the minerals deal and spells out that any future U.S. military assistance to Ukraine will also be considered U.S. investment into the fund. Russia had been angling to secure an end to any further U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine as a condition to any longer-term ceasefire, and now this prospect appears to have dimmed.
Russia had appeared to have the upper hand in negotiations over Ukraine’s fate, especially after a rancorous falling out between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump in March in the Oval Office led to the minerals deal not being signed and then actually renegotiated.
Moscow and Kyiv have sought to portray each other as the blame for lack of progress in talks for a peace that Trump initially said he could secure within 24 hours of becoming president. But after his initial clashes with Zelensky — including blaming him for provoking Russia’s invasion — Trump’s ire has increasingly been focused on Russia’s dragging out of negotiations and apparent rejection of a U.S.-proposed 30-day ceasefire Kyiv had immediately backed.
After a brief meeting with Zelensky on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral last week, Trump lashed out at Putin for recent deadly missile attacks on civilian areas, threatening further sanctions, and said he wondered whether the Russian leader was “just tapping me along.” The White House also appeared to dismiss Putin’s proposal this week for a three-day ceasefire over the May 9 Victory Day celebrations.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also warned this week that he had Senate backing for a bill proposing crushing new sanctions against Russia. The bill seeks to impose 500 percent tariffs on imports from countries that buy Russian oil, gas or uranium, if Russia does not engage in serious negotiations to end the war.
A Russian official said pressure was now growing on Putin to at least appear to make further concessions. “He understands that he needs to be more cooperative,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “Otherwise, the bill forwarded by Graham would be a serious blow because the government has already announced that the budget deficit is growing.”
Economic concerns are at the center of a deepening rift in the Russian elite over tactics in negotiations in which the more dovish side is pressing the Kremlin to accept a possible U.S. deal in which the conflict would be frozen at the current front line in return for a partial lifting of sanctions and U.S. recognition of Russian control over Crimea, while hawks are pressing for Russia to continue its war regardless.
The Russian official said economic considerations were playing an increasing role since “it is impossible to build the economy completely on a mobilization model.” Sanctions and Russia’s wartime spending spree have led to spiraling inflation — officially at nearly 10 percent — while consumer price increases are nearly double that rate.
Central bank efforts to combat inflation with sky-high interest rates of 21 percent have failed to rein in price increases and have instead led to increasing non-payments in the Russian economy and across the banking system. This week, Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, reported that the level of problem loans had grown sharply in the first quarter of 2025, with overdue consumer loans at 16.1 percent of that portfolio.
“All the banks are not in the best of conditions,” the official said. “If we speak about the level of debt among the population, if we speak about inflation and if we speak about the fall in living standards, all this is happening.”
The debate in the government, said the official, is between those who see the worsening economy as a reason to forge better ties with the U.S. and those who think Russia should seize more Ukrainian territory while it has the military advantage and Europe struggles to fill in for a reluctant America.
Markov said the possible closer relations between the U.S. and Ukraine from the minerals deal meant that Russia was more likely to keep fighting to ensure that it gets the best deal possible.
“If Russia has military successes in spring and summer and autumn, then the West’s position will become more compromising and the probability of a peace agreement will increase,” he said. Russia could not accept any ceasefire that would open the way for Ukraine to rearm and launch a further mobilization.
Vice President JD Vance appeared to create an opening for Russia to further drag out peace talks and continue its military campaign when he told Fox News on Thursday that “there’s a very big gulf between what the Russians want and what the Ukrainians want,” and added that the U.S. would “work very hard” for a further 100 days “to try to bring these guys together.”
Vance’s comments appeared to contradict a tough line taken by other members of the Trump administration, including by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who warned once again that there would have to be a breakthrough in talks “very soon,” or the U.S. could decide to walk away from attempts to broker a deal.
A Russian academic close to senior diplomats said the minerals agreement could make it more difficult for the United States to abandon peace talks and put the onus on Putin to respond, potentially with mineral deal offers of its own. He said a longer-term ceasefire agreement could be reached if the U.S. agreed to limit certain types of weapons to Ukraine, such as offensive systems, he added.
“Of course Russia could continue to fight, but there is a risk that everything could return to how it was under Biden. … If Trump has the impression that people are trying to deceive him and drag out the process without making what he views as an advantageous agreement for Russia then of course he could take the decision to ramp up [military] assistance.”
