Zelenskyy: Europe cannot guarantee Ukraine’s security without America Exclusive: In extended interview with the Guardian, Ukraine’s president says he will offer US firms lucrative reconstruction contracts to try to get Trump onside.
Zelenskyy said he was ready to negotiate, but wanted Ukraine to do so from a “position of strength”, and said he would offer American companies lucrative reconstruction contracts and investment concessions to try to get Trump onside.
Zelenskyy said he pitched this idea to Trump back in September, when the pair met in New York, and he intends to return with “a more detailed plan” about opportunities for US companies both in the reconstruction of postwar Ukraine and in the extraction of Ukrainian natural resources.
“They may make a deal, they may not make a deal, they may be Russian some day, they may not be Russian some day, but we’re gonna have all this money in there and I said I want it back,” said Trump.
If Donald Trump withdraws US support for Ukraine, Europe alone will be unable to fill the gap, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned, on the eve of what could be his most consequential diplomatic trip since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago.
