Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
We're coming to you live from London.
I'm Paul Henley.
The American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio,
has hailed a natural resources deal newly agreed between the US and Ukraine as an important step towards ending the war with Russia.
The agreement has been signed after months of tense negotiations and will create a war reconstruction fund in exchange for Ukrainian energy and mineral resources.
Last night,
President Trump phoned into the US cable news network News Nation to reveal what he'd said to President Zelensky at their much-photographed meeting in the Vatican.
I was telling him that it's a very good thing if we can produce a deal that you sign it.
because Russia is much bigger and much stronger.
They loaned the money and Biden handed them $350 billion in between cash and military equipment.
350, we got nothing.
And I felt very foolish being the head of a country where Europe gets their money back and it's a much smaller amount and we get nothing.
So I went to them and said, look, we got to get rare earth.
Well,
the deal is seen by the Ukrainian government as essential to ensure access to future US military aid.
But among the US opposition, it has its critics.
The Californian Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman,
who's a member of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus,
told the BBC the deal did nothing to protect Ukraine against future threats from Russia.