EuroDigest

Trump confirms Zelenskyy agreement, White House visit

President Donald Trump will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday to sign what he called “a very big agreement” on sharing revenue from Ukraine’s rare earth mineral deposits.

“It’s now confirmed, and we’re going to be signing an agreement,” Trump said Wednesday morning at the outset of his first Cabinet meeting at the White House.

Trump had suggested Tuesday evening that the meeting was not yet locked in, as Ukraine continued to work through the final details of the arrangement with U.S. negotiators.

The meeting is likely to occur at the White House, according to a person familiar with the plans, and not Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where the president is scheduled to travel to Friday evening.

Trump continued to present the agreement, the details of which remain unknown, as a way for the U.S. to recoup some of the aid sent to Ukraine over the course of the three-year war. The U.S. has sent Ukraine $120 billion so far. Trump has inflated the amount, falsely stating again Wednesday that American taxpayers were on the hook for “$350 billion” in aid.

“We’ve been able to make a deal where we’re going to be able to get our money back,” Trump said. “We’re happy about it.”

Zelenskyy, speaking with reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday, called the agreement “a beginning,” cautioning that a lot will hinge on his conversations with Trump and the necessity for additional security guarantees, a key point of tension.

“I will understand everything after I talk to Trump. For me, the most important thing is to find out will the U.S. stop military aid or not,” he said. “If its stops, will we be able to buy weapons directly from the U.S., maybe using Russian frozen assets?”

Trump is eager to broker an agreement to end the war in Ukraine but, so far, has directed his pressure campaign almost entirely at Zelenskyy while parroting a number of Russian talking points and preemptively agreeing to some of the Kremlin’s key demands about how to resolve the conflict.

The mineral deal with Ukraine would not end the war. Trump this week has stated that Europe will be primarily responsible for backing Ukraine militarily, even as French President Emmanuel Macron reminded him during a White House visit Monday that the strongest security guarantee possible requires the backing of the U.S.

Asked what security guarantees the U.S. would provide, Trump was blunt: “I’m not going to make security guarantees very much because we’re going to have Europe do that,” he said during a lengthy back and forth with reporters during his Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

But he suggested that an American presence in Ukraine amounted to “automatic security,” as proponents of the agreement have argued, “because nobody’s going to be messing around with our people.”

Zelenskyy’s outrage at the terms of the Trump administration’s initial proposal — it called for Ukraine to provide the U.S. $500 billion in future revenue — led to a public spat between the two leaders. But after three years of war, the Ukrainian leader had little choice but to hammer out some agreement with the U.S. in hopes that it will keep Trump invested in his country’s future and have some deterring effect on Russia from launching another invasion.

Trump, during comments Tuesday, also expressed interest in buying “minerals on Russian land, too.” That came one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he’d be interested in striking his own deal with Trump to allow the U.S. to access his country’s mineral deposits.

Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report.

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Bosnia tensions build as Serb leader is sentenced for undermining peace

BELGRADE — A foul-mouthed Bosnian Serb leader who has been a central figure in nearly two decades of instability and controversy could soon be barred from political office — and even face jail time, pending a possible appeal.

A top state-level court in Sarajevo on Wednesday sentenced Milorad Dodik, president of a Serb-majority federal entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to one year in prison and barred him from politics for six years for pushing through legislation in defiance of the country’s Constitutional Court and circumventing established legal procedures. Dodik has two weeks to appeal the ruling.

Christian Schmidt, head of the international community’s Office of the High Representative (OHR), was the first to attempt to stop Dodik in July 2023, using his authority as peace envoy to intervene. But Dodik refused to back down.

Wednesday’s verdict marked the first time since the bloody 1992-1995 conflict in the former Yugoslavia that local courts — rather than the OHR — have moved to rein in Dodik, raising fears of violent escalation in a country where ethnic tensions still shape politics and institutions hesitate to challenge corrupt nationalist leaders.

In a statement following the conviction, the court stressed it had faced “significant pressure from the public and political actors,” underscoring the precarious precedent set by the verdict.

Bosnia is held together by an internationally brokered peace deal, known as the Dayton Accords, which later became the country’s constitution. The pact grants extensive powers and protections to all its ethnic groups.

Law enforcement was out in force in Sarajevo, the capital, while Dodik’s supporters protested in the regional capital of Banja Luka, with some camping out overnight.

Dodik — who has several other active cases against him for genocide denial and unconstitutional actions — seemed jovial after the verdict.

“We must be cheerful,” he said in a statement. “They say that I am guilty … there’s no reason to worry.” His insouciance highlighted — as it has on many occasions — that he does not recognize the court’s authority.

The burly ultranationalist, nicknamed “the Bosnian Bear” for his physique and crude antics, has long claimed that Bosnian institutions unfairly target ethnic Serbs and should not be taken seriously.

Wednesday’s verdict marked the first time since the bloody 1992-1995 conflict in the former Yugoslavia that local courts — rather than the OHR. | Elvis Barukcic/Getty Images

He has frequently enlisted maverick allies: Former New York City mayor, Donald Trump loyalist and disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani was flown to Banja Luka for an extensive interview on his podcast before the verdict, while figures such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have often supported Dodik’s anti-Western rhetoric.

Dodik’s actions often reverberate widely in a region still dominated by ethnic politics.

In response to the verdict, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić convened a security council meeting in Belgrade and planned to visit Banja Luka personally on Wednesday evening.