Sawt Falasteen - Zelensky at White House to sign minerals deal with Trump

The potentially tense meeting comes after a week-long diplomatic dance that has also seen the leaders of France and Britain come to the White House to persuade Trump not to abandon Kyiv.

Trump alarmed US allies and upended Washington's longstanding Ukraine policy two weeks ago when he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and started talks on ending the three-year-old war -- without Kyiv's involvement.

The US leader has demanded a deal granting Washington preferential access to Ukraine's rare-earth and other natural resources as the price for any continued backing -- even though he has refused to commit to giving Kyiv security guarantees as part of a truce with Russia.

"We'll be dig, dig, digging" for Ukraine's resources, Trump said on Thursday ahead of the meeting -- echoing his presidential election campaign slogan about how the United States would "drill, baby, drill" for oil.

But Trump has softened his tone on Zelensky in recent days, after berating him last week as a "dictator without elections", blaming Ukraine for Russia's February 2022 invasion and echoing a series of Kremlin talking points about the war.

- 'Lot of respect' -

"I have a lot of respect for him," Trump said of Zelensky on Thursday at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. "We're going to get along really well."

Trump also backtracked on the "dictator" broadside he launched on social media at Zelensky last week -- a jibe he had previously refused to retract even as he declined to call Putin a dictator too.

"Did I say that? I can't believe I said that. Next question," Trump responded when asked about the Zelensky comment.

Trump, a billionaire real estate tycoon, insists the minerals deal is necessary for Washington to recoup the billions of dollars it has given Ukraine in military and other aid.

Few details have emerged of exactly what it will involve, beyond giving Washington special access to Ukraine's deep reserves of oil, gas and critical rare-earth minerals used in tech products.

Zelensky said ahead of his arrival in Washington that US and Ukrainian officials would determine the nature of security guarantees for Ukraine and the exact sums of money at stake in the accord, he said.

But Trump -- who said this week he trusts Putin to "keep his word" on any ceasefire and has repeatedly expressed admiration for the authoritarian Russian leader in the past -- has refused to commit on security.

- 'Backstop' demands -

Britain and France have both offered peacekeepers in the event of a deal to end the Ukraine war but say there must be a US "backstop" -- including American intelligence and possibly air power.

Putin and Trump said after their February 12 phone call that they had agreed to meet personally -- but they have not finalized any meeting yet.

US and Russian officials met on Thursday in Istanbul in a new round of talks, after which Russia named career diplomat Alexander Darchiev as new ambassador to the United States, filling a role vacant since last year.

But as tensions between Moscow and Washington eased, Russia's assault on Ukraine continued.

Russian infantry were on Friday storming the Ukrainian border from the Russian region of Kursk, near areas of the region that were seized last summer by Ukrainian forces, Kyiv said Friday.

M.AbuKhalil--SF-PST