US President Donald Trump said that the US is currently not providing "any" defense assistance to Ukraine.
“We are not providing anything right now", he told reporters in the Oval Office.
At the same time, Trump admitted that Ukraine has enough weapons to continue hostilities until Russia and the US reach an agreement to resolve the conflict.
The American president also said that in the future Europe will have to be responsible for military assistance to Kiev.
A day ago, Politico reported that Ukraine would lose about half of its weapons, including the most effective ones, without military assistance from the US. The Wall Street Journal, citing current and former Western officials, writes that Kiev will be able to conduct military operations "at the current pace" without American support. only until the summer, after which the Ukrainian armed forces risk running out of ammunition and losing the ability to use some types of modern weapons and strike at long distances.
Trump said he supports the idea of an agreement with Russia on access to rare earth elements, Reuters reports.
“I would like to make a deal to get access to Russian rare earth elements“, the American president was quoted as saying.
Trump stressed that both Russia and Ukraine have deposits of rare earth metals, as well as oil and gas.
"Look, this is great, this is great for Russia, because we can make deals that will use very valuable but underdeveloped land. Something like that could happen," he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow was ready to offer the United States the opportunity to work together in the field of rare earth metals, including in new regions.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian-American economic cooperation projects would become possible after the conflict in Ukraine is resolved.
Peskov also noted that Russia has its own plans to develop strategic resources, but this opens up quite broad prospects for cooperation.