Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world The long unthinkable prospect of Ukraine fighting without US weapons, equipment or intelligence looks set to become a reality after the White House on Monday announced it would cut military aid to Kyiv.

But Trump has given no indication he is prepared to offer assistance to ensure any agreement holds. European promises to re-arm — the president has been telling the continent to stop freeriding on US guarantees for the best part of a decade — may have come too late.

Europe is rushing to provide Ukraine with alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband satellite network, after the US withdrew military aid and intelligence sharing from the country this week.

“The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, told the Financial Times on Tuesday.

Let’s be clear, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is horrible. For 11 years, I have documented the war’s cost. With the full-scale invasion three years ago, my organisation established a network of human rights defenders to record mass atrocities — from the dead on the streets in Bucha to the mass graves in Izium.

The summit follows a fortnight of frantic shuttle diplomacy between Washington, London and Paris by Europe’s most senior leaders, in an attempt to both devise a European “peace plan” potentially involving troops on the ground in Ukraine, and keep Trump engaged in supporting Ukraine and protecting Europe.

Eutelsat, the owner of OneWeb, a rival to Starlink, on Tuesday said it was “actively collaborating with European institutions and business partners”, adding that it had equipment that could be “deployed swiftly in Ukraine to connect the most critical missions and infrastructures”.

Trump poised to grab Ukraine minerals on linkedin (opens in a new window)

Keir Starmer held an online meeting with President Alar Karis of Estonia, Prime Minister Evika Siliņa of Latvia and President Gitanas Nausėda of Lithuania on Sunday morning and “underlined his focus on securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that ensures their future sovereignty, backed up by strong security guarantees”.

Gideon Rachman So I guess the danger for Ukraine is that Putin nominally agrees to a ceasefire, Trump says war is over, keeps and then breaks the ceasefire, and Trump in his way, blames the Ukrainians and says, well, I’m not going to come in anyway, you know.

Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox ... their military experience in Russia’s previous wars, more urgency in solving financial or legal problems, or the fact that older Russians statistically spend ...

Ukraine has large deposits of critical minerals, including lithium, graphite, cobalt, titanium and some rare earths. It also has reserves of oil, gas and coal. All of these are covered by the agreement — as long as they are owned “directly or indirectly” by the Ukrainian government — as well as associated logistics.