US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz in the White House as Donald Trump hosts NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Washington D.C., March 13, 2025 (Andrew Harnik/Getty)

Thursday’s Coverage: Kyiv and US Sign Minerals Deal

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1314 GMT:

Belgian financial services company Euroclear plans to confiscate and redistribute €3 billion ($3.4 billion) from frozen Russian funds to compensate Western investors whose assets were seized by Moscow, say “sources familiar with the matter”.

The compensation will come from €10 billion ($11.3 billion) in cash frozen under European Union sanctions over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia confiscation of billions of euros in Western-held assets over the past year.

UPDATE 0844 GMT:

Writing for New Lines magazine, Michael Weiss and James Rushton report that “Moscow’s intelligence services are recruiting unsuspecting civilians, including the young and vulnerable, for suicide missions”.

Incidents include the mother of an infant who detonated a bomb close to soldiers outside a cafe in Mykolaiv city on February 14.

The woman, 42, from the city of Horishni Plavni in the Poltava region, had left her child in a hostel. Her Russian intelligence contact told her only that she was to deliver a large amount of money to a certain location.

The bomb was prepared by teenagers, between 14 and 17, from Poltava under instruction from Russian handlers. Moscow’s intelligence operatives tracked the woman’s arrival at the target site and detonated the package remotely.

In early March, an explosive device carried by two teenagers, 15 and 17, detonated near the railway station in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine. They also had assembled the device under supervision of Russian handlers. They were told they would plant the bomb and leave safely, but Russian intelligence set off the explosive remotely.

Staff of Ukraine’s State security service SBU are visiting schools to tell students of the dangers of foreign recruitment.

How do you know that they are trying to use you?

For example, a stranger writes to you on social media and offers “easy money” for completing a simple task. They hint to you that “it’s not scary, nothing bad will happen”.

Russian agents can also resort to intimidation or blackmail. And the tasks can be arson, mining, taking photos of objects, transmitting information or even terrorist attacks.

UPDATE 0614 GMT:

Air defenses downed 64 of 150 drones launched by Russia overnight. Another 62 were lost to electronic counter-measures.

At least 14 civilians, including a 13-year-old boy, were injured and buildings set afire by a Russian drone attack on Zaporizhzhia city in south-central Ukraine.

Nine people are being treated in hospital.

There were at least 10 strikes targeting private homes, high-rise apartment buildings, educational institutions, and infrastructure sites.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed a minerals deal with the US as a step towards American support of Ukrainian security.

But just after he spoke, Donald Trump fed uncertainty with the demotion of his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.

Zelensky posted about Wednesday’s agreement, signed in Washington by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukraine First Deputy Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko:

The agreement has changed significantly during the preparation process. It is now truly an equal partnership — one that creates opportunities for substantial investment in Ukraine, as well as significant modernization of Ukraine’s industries and, equally importantly, its legal practices.

Zelensky has always linked the deal to US involvement in a security guarantee amid Russia’s 38-month full-scale invasion. That approach collapsed at the end of February when US Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump verbally ambushed him at the White House, and a US draft last month demanded 100% control of the profits from minerals and rare earths.

However, negotiations with Trump’s staff revised the terms in Kyiv’s favor. The final text affirms a “long-term strategic alignment” between the two countries and US “support for Ukraine’s security, prosperity, reconstruction, and integration into global economic frameworks”.

The document sets out 50-50 control of a US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. Trump’s team dropped the demand that the fund initially repay aid from the Biden Administration: relating only to new investments, the revenues can be devoted ot Ukrainian recovery and reconstruction.

Tymofiy Mylovanov of the Kyiv School of Economics posted, “Ukraine held the line. Despite enormous pressure, every overreaching demand from the other side was dropped. The final deal looks fair.”

Having held out against any guarantee of Ukraine’s security, Trump indicated a connection between the deal and defense of Kyiv. He said at a Cabinet meeting, “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.”

In an immediate breakthrough, the Administration lifted its pause on delivery of military aid to Ukraine.

Officials informed Congress of the intention to allow the export of defense-related products through direct commercial sales of $50 million or more.

In its most recent aid package for Ukraine, Congress approved more than $1 billion worth of DCS-related sales. The Biden Administration used the authorization to transfer much-needed weapons, such as fully automatic .50 caliber machine guns.

Industry experts say it will be years before the agreement will see financial returns from mining.

“If anyone’s thinking suddenly all these minerals are going to be flying out of Ukraine, they’re dreaming,” said Adam Webb of Benchmark Minerals Intelligence. “It’s going to be difficult for people to justify investing money there when there are options to invest in critical minerals in countries that are not at war.”

Developing mineral deposits typically takes 10 to 20 years in established mining countries like Canada or Australia. Many of Ukraine’s have limited geological data, and Russia’s invasion has damaged key infrastructure, including transport and energy systems.

But Bessent said on Thursday, “I think this is a strong signal to the Russian leadership and it gives President Trump the ability to now negotiate with Russia on an even stronger basis as opposed to the daylight that had been previously created between the U.S. and Ukraine.”

Will Trump Demotion of Waltz Hurt Ukraine?

But moments after Zelensky hailed the deal, Trump removed Waltz as National Security Advisor, moving him to US Ambassador to the UN.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will also be the interim National Security Advisor, with White House officials insisting that he can carry out both roles.

Waltz had been targeted by Vice President Vance and senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller, both of whom are staunch foes of assisting Ukraine’s security.

Just before he was transferred, Waltz praised the minerals deal, albeit misrepresenting its priority as “recouping the billions of dollars we’ve put into supporting Ukraine”.

Rubio said in a brief statement:

Waltz had been under pressure since March, when he organized a discussion on Signal of US attack plans against the Ansar Allah (Houthi) faction which controls most of Yemen.

He mistakenly added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, to the discussion. Just after leaving the group, Goldberg wrote about the incident with its sharing of classified information.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who posted the attack plans not only in the channel with fellow officials but also in a second Signal group with his wife and friends, has escaped any reprimand over the incident. Republicans in Congress have blocked an inquiry, and Trump praised him — while not mentioning Waltz — in comments on Thursday.