Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticized the offer of United States President Donald Trump to provide military aid to Ukraine in exchange for access to its rare earth resources, writes "Politico".
"If we call it what it is, this is an offer to buy aid - in other words, not to give it unconditionally or for any other reasons, but specifically to provide it on a commercial basis," Peskov told reporters. Tuesday.
"It would be better, of course, not to provide the aid at all, because that would contribute to the end of this conflict," he added of the war.
Trump announced on Monday that he wanted to make a deal with Ukraine in which the United States would provide military aid for the war against Russian President Vladimir Putin in exchange for rare earth metals to Ukraine.
Ukraine has strategic reserves of titanium, lithium, graphite and uranium, which are crucial to its future economic stability and potentially part of the calculation in balancing immediate aid with long-term sovereignty over its resources.
Some of the critical minerals are in areas currently occupied by Russia, which has been at war with Ukraine since 2014. and launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine has not yet commented on Trump's proposal, but sharing resources with allies is part of President Volodymyr Zelensky's "victory plan" for the war against Russia.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticized Trump's proposal, calling it "very selfish, very egocentric" and claiming that Ukraine would need its natural resources to finance post-war reconstruction.
The topic was later commented on by the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, quoted by TASS.
Washington could restore its aid to Ukraine by using its underground resources, while Europe would have to pay a crazy price for supporting Kiev, Medvedev predicted.
"Trump explained how Kiev would pay the US - with rare earth metals from Ukraine. "And what about Europe? It will pay crazy money to collect the failed state of Ukraine from the rubble. Europeans, thank your leaders for this: Ursula, Macron, Scholz and other pathetic figures!", Medvedev wrote in X in English.