President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will sign a deal giving the United States substantial rights to Kyiv’s lucrative rare earth minerals and to compensate Washington for weapons sent to Ukraine to fight Russia’s three-year war of aggression. Trump, at the first Cabinet meeting of his new presidential term, said that Zelenskyy will be at the White House on Friday to sign the pact and for discussions about the state of the war. Trump said the deal “brings us great wealth,” but said his first goal is to end the war, which has killed or wounded several hundred thousand Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians. “My No. 2 thing is to get paid back,” Trump said of the more than $100 billion in munitions Washington has shipped to Kyiv to support its fighters. “Without our equipment, that [war] would have been over very quickly,” with Russia overrunning Ukraine. As it is, Russia now controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory and has vowed to not give any of it back in a would-be peace settlement. Trump said he expects to eventually reach a deal with Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the fighting. Trump initiated talks with Putin about ending the conflict but the first discussions last week between the top U.S. and Russian diplomats, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, excluded Ukrainian and European officials…Read more