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The US has declared it will cease its role as the mediator in negotiating a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, following Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to a complete ceasefire.
The State Department indicated that the nation is revising “the methodology of how we contribute” to the dialogues and will no longer “fly around the world at the drop of a hat” for discussions.
The shift comes just hours after Trump’s deputy JD Vance said the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end “any time soon”.
He added: “It is going to be up to the Russians and Ukrainians now that each side knows what the other’s terms for peace are.
“It’s going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict.”
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce stated that while the US will continue to support efforts to achieve peace in war-ravaged Ukraine, it will withdraw from its direct role as a mediator.
It added that Kyiv and Moscow must now present “concrete” proposals for ending the war and should meet directly to resolve the conflict.
Bruce said: “We are not going to fly around the world at the drop of a hat to mediate meetings; that is now between the two parties, and now is the time that they need to present and develop concrete ideas about how this conflict is going to end.
“[Trump] knows also that there is another part of the world, a whole globe that needs some attention.
“The Secretary has also made it very clear that while our style will change, the methodology of how we contribute to this will change in that we will not be the mediators,” Bruce added.
Trump previously said he would pull the plug on the peace negotiations if Moscow or Kyiv did not commit to a ceasefire.
He wrote on Truth Social: “If one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re just going to take a pass.”
Last week, Marco Rubio warned that they would walk away unless there is a deal in days.
ONE FINAL PUSH?
The shift comes just two days after the US and Ukraine signed a historic minerals deal – and could be a final push by Washington to broker a peace plan between Moscow and Kyiv.
The US initially proposed a 30-day ceasefire deal, which was accepted by Kyiv.
Not only has Moscow rejected the ceasefire deal and other plans to end the bloody war, but the Russian forces have also intensified attacks in Ukraine that have killed civilians.
The US also drafted a seven-point plan, which it hoped would draw a path to peace between Ukraine and Russia.
However, the plan was rejected by Zelensky as it involved the US formally recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
Trump is said to be growing “increasingly frustrated” with both Putin and Zelensky in his attempts to bring the Ukraine war to a close.
The president, who appeared to be cosying up with Putin since taking over the White House in January, ordered Putin to “sit down and sign a deal”.
He said he was both “surprised and very disappointed” that mad Vlad continued to bomb Ukraine, despite the dictator engaging in crunch talks with US peace envoy Steve Witkoff.
Trump’s seven-point peace plan
THE US has drafted up a seven-point plan which, it hopes, will draw a path to peace between Ukraine and Russia.
A source with knowledge of the plan reportedly revealed the content of the main points:
- Immediate ceasefire in Ukraine
- Direct talks between Ukraine and Russia
- Ukraine to be barred from joining Nato
- US to formally recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea
- US to give de facto recognition of four Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia along the current lines of control
- Ukraine to sign minerals deal to share profits on natural resources with the US
- All US sanctions lifted on Russia and both countries co-operate on energy
It came after Putin’s barbaric missile strikes on Kyiv earlier this week that left at least 12 dead.
Russia announced a token ceasefire to coincide with VE Day after President Trump accused Putin of stringing him along on peace talks.
The Kremlin said troops will stop fighting for 96 hours at midnight on 7 May.
The pause will coincide with events to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe.
But Moscow dashed hopes of a peace deal by repeating demands that Ukraine must surrender and disarm.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has “made it clear” he wants a permanent ceasefire, rather than the temporary pause offered by the scheming Russian tyrant.
But experts say this was Putin’s plan all along, and he’s played Trump like a fiddle.
Meanwhile, US officials are said to have prepared a set of options that could pressurise Putin to end the war in Ukraine, according to a report by Bloomberg.
While the officials say Trump has made no decision yet, the steps could mean more crippling sanctions on Moscow.
ART OF THE DEAL
The US and Ukraine signed the long-awaited minerals deal two months after it was derailed by Trump and Zelensky’s Oval Office bust-up.
It came as a humiliating blow for Putin, who has sought to break apart the two allies.
Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary and one of the main architects of the deal, said it was “historic”.
He said the deal “signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine”.
The deal will give Washington priority access to invest in new projects to develop Ukraine’s natural resources – including aluminium, graphite, oil and natural gas.
It also means that America will continue to back Ukraine in the war militarily.
US-Ukraine minerals deal explained
By Sayan Bose, Foreign News Reporter
The minerals deal sets out the creation of a joint US-Ukrainian fund for reconstruction, which will receive 50 per cent of profits and royalties accruing to the Ukrainian state from new natural resources permits in Ukraine.
The deal does not spell out how the joint fund’s revenues will be spent, who benefits or who controls decisions about the spending.
Now that the deal has been closed, the two sides will agree on two further technical and supplementary documents outlining issues such as how the funds are accumulated.
Ukraine would retain control of all its resources in the deal, while the fund will invest in the development of Ukraine for 10 years, according to the country’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal.
The US could use its future military assistance to Ukraine as its contribution to the fund, Shmyhal said, with no previous military aid to the country reflected in the deal.
“Ukraine will only make a contribution from new licenses, from new royalties on mineral resources. This will be our contribution, 50% of which will be given to this fund,” he added.
A draft of the main minerals agreement showed that Ukraine had secured the removal of any requirement for it to pay back the US for past military assistance, something Ukraine had staunchly opposed.
Washington has been Ukraine’s single largest military donor since Russia’s 2022 invasion, with aid of more than 64 billion euros ($72 billion), according to the Kiel Institute in Germany.
The rare earth minerals Washington will have access to
Rare earth elements are a set of 17 elements that are essential in many kinds of consumer technology, including cellphones, hard drives and electric and hybrid vehicles.
It is unclear if Trump is seeking specific elements that Ukraine has.
The country also has other in-demand minerals to offer including lithium, titanium, and uranium.
The country’s reserves of titanium, a key component for the aerospace, medical and automotive industries, are believed to be among Europe’s largest.
Ukraine also holds some of Europes largest known reserves of lithium, which is required to produce batteries, ceramics and glass.
China, Trumps chief geopolitical adversary, is the worlds largest producer of rare earth elements.
Both the US and Europe have sought to reduce their dependence on Beijing.
For Ukraine, such a deal would ensure that its biggest and most consequential ally does not freeze military support, which would be devastating for the country that will soon enter its fourth year of war against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The idea also comes at a time when reliable and uninterrupted access to critical minerals is increasingly hard to come by globally.
Ukraines rare earth elements are largely untapped because of the war, regulation, and information about what exactly is underground.
An estimated 40 per cent of Ukraine’s metallic mineral resources are inaccessible because of Russian occupation, according to data from We Build Ukraine, a Kyiv-based think tank.
Ukraine has argued that it is in Trumps interest to develop the remainder before Russian advances capture more.
The European Commission identified Ukraine as a potential supplier for over 20 critical raw materials and concluded that the countrys accession to the EU could strengthen the European economy.
In 2021, the Ukrainian mineral industry accounted for 6.1% of the countrys gross domestic product and 30% of exports.
UNCLE SAM’S SECURITY
Ukrainian officials hope that signing the deal proposed by Trump will firm up American support for Kyiv in the more than three-year-old war.
A former Trump advisor told LBC the developing US-Ukraine minerals deal will be a “trip wire” that Russia will not cross.
He said: “It would engage the American military. It puts the Americans squarely in the middle of the Ukrainian state. It is a trip wire that Putin would dare not to cross.”
Trump had originally sought $500 billion in mineral wealth — around four times what the United States has contributed to Ukraine since the war.
He has previously baulked at offering security guarantees to Ukraine and has rejected its aspiration to join Nato.
But Trump said on Wednesday that a US presence on the ground would benefit Ukraine.
“The American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging,” Trump said at the cabinet meeting.
He reiterated that the US should get something for its prior aid to Kyiv, thus the effort to secure a deal for Ukraine’s plentiful deposits of rare earth minerals.
“I assume they’re going to honour the deal. We haven’t really seen the fruits of that deal yet. I suspect we will,” Trump said after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
