The U.S. and Ukraine are nearing a deal that would hand valuable mineral rights to the U.S., an agreement that the Trump administration has sought as compensation for military aid to fight off Russia’s invasion, people familiar with the matter said. 

Ukraine had refused to sign such a deal earlier this week, sparking a war of words between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and fears of a break in relations between Washington and Kyiv. 

In an apparent nod to an impending deal, Zelensky said in a nightly video address Friday that teams of U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators were working on a draft agreement.

“This is an agreement that can strengthen our relations, and the key is to work out the details to ensure its effectiveness,” he said. “I look forward to the outcome—a just result.” 

Zelensky was presented with a deal by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv last week, but refused to sign, saying the Ukrainian side needed to study it further and that a deal should contain some form of security guarantees for Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said that they had only a few hours to study it before it was presented to them. 

An agreement could be signed as soon as Saturday, although it isn’t yet complete, people briefed on the talks said. The exact terms couldn’t be learned. 

Asked about the prospect of a deal on minerals with Ukraine, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Friday: “I think they want it. They feel good about it.”

Zelensky’s initial rejection of the deal proposed by Bessent had prompted escalating broadsides from Trump against the Ukrainian president. Trump called Zelensky a dictator after Zelensky suggested Trump was living in a bubble of Russian disinformation.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, met with Zelensky in Kyiv Thursday, a meeting that Ukraine’s president said afterward “restores hope.”

“I gave instructions to work swiftly and very sensibly,” Zelensky said.

A person close to the government in Kyiv said Kellogg played “a big part” in finalizing terms of the deal by building trust with Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials over a three-day visit to the country’s capital.

The feud had sparked concerns among U.S. allies that Trump could pull support from Ukraine, which has relied on U.S. military and financial aid to defend itself for three years against a Russian invasion.

Trump is seeking to quickly end to the war in Ukraine, where Russia has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians and razed dozens of cities. Senior U.S. and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and agreed to appoint teams to negotiate a settlement to the war.

Zelensky complained that he hadn’t been involved and said Ukraine wouldn’t agree to a deal that it hadn’t taken part in negotiating.

Zelensky’s administration had itself floated the idea of Ukraine granting preferential access to its mineral resources last year, hoping that it would entice Trump to continue military support for Kyiv by offering the U.S. some economic benefit. During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly criticized the U.S. military aid as a waste of money. 

Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, this week had called the proposed deal “an economic partnership” and “a historic opportunity to have the United States of America co-invest with Ukraine, invest in its economy, invest in its natural resources.”

Ukraine says it has Europe’s largest reserves of titanium, which is used to make alloys for aircraft and naval vessels, and lithium, a key material in batteries.

It also has deposits of rare earths, essential in certain high-tech industries, including defense and renewable energy. While potentially plentiful, the reserves would require massive investment to develop, even in peacetime, and many are located in areas occupied by Russia. 

The minerals are also especially valuable to the U.S. because of heightened tensions with China and Russia, whose land masses now control a large portion of them. 

Zelensky had called the initial proposal “unclear,” saying it had demanded a 50% share of a list of mineral deposits. He said Trump’s demand for $500 billion in minerals was excessive, saying that U.S. military and financial aid to Ukraine during the war had totaled about $100 billion.