February 17, 2025: Donald Trump presidency news

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is open to signing a deal that would grant the United States access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, if Washington provides security guarantees to Kyiv in return.

“The question is not what Ukraine can give, but what can Ukraine get?” Zelensky said at a news conference Monday.

Over the weekend, Zelensky said he had not let one of his ministers sign the first draft of an agreement with the US that would open up Ukraine’s mineral deposits in return for future military aid from Washington.

Speaking Monday, Zelensky said Ukraine expected to receive a “more detailed plan” from the US soon. He stressed that Ukraine is “really very interested” in signing an agreement with Washington over mineral deposits, but that he wanted more clarity over “what exactly the (US) is giving in terms of security guarantees.”

President Donald Trump said last week that he wants to see a return on US assistance to Ukraine, so that the US doesn’t “feel stupid.”

“They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth, in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things. I want to have our money secured,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

Although the Trump administration last week delivered a blow to Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO as part of a negotiated settlement with Russia, Zelensky said an agreement with the US “should at least outline something about security guarantees, such as NATO or an alternative.”

A sign for the Internal Revenue Service outside its building in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

The Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, is seeking access to data from the Internal Revenue Service that includes sensitive financial information about taxpayers, several sources told the Washington Post.

The department is asking for access to several data systems, including the Integrated Data Retrieval System, a highly guarded system that includes taxpayers’ personal identification numbers.

The news comes amid this year’s tax filing season. The IRS is currently accepting and processing 2024 income tax returns.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Saturday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine wants security guarantees to be tangible rather than simply “on paper,” when discussing the prospect of a European peacekeeping contingent to be deployed to Ukraine as part of a negotiated settlement with Russia.

“We want security guarantees not on paper, but on the ground, on the water, in the sky, air defense, airplanes, ships,” Zelensky said Wednesday at a news conference in Abu Dhabi.

Zelensky on Saturday urged Europe to band together to create a united army and foreign policy, warning that the days of guaranteed US support for the continent are over.

Last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said NATO membership for Ukraine was not a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement with Russia.

On Monday, Zelensky suggested that a NATO-like security guarantee could still be created in Ukraine.

“If we don’t have NATO, then, as I said, figuratively speaking, NATO should be built in Ukraine,” he said, calling for a “million-strong” European army to be deployed to his country.

European leaders are meeting in Paris on Monday to discuss a coordinated response to the US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia, and Washington’s signal that European security is no longer a priority for the United States.

Before the meeting, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “ready and willing” to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine to enforce a peace deal if necessary.

Zelensky also said that French President Emmanuel Macron had told him that once these talks conclude “in the next few days,” Paris will tell Kyiv more details about a potential contingent of European troops.

Good morning. Last week was busy in politics, and this week is shaping up to be largely the same with a big focus on President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Here’s what to know as you get read in this Monday morning:

Saudi meeting: A high-level Russian negotiating team is enroute to Riyadh, where they will be briefing Saudi officials ahead of talks with the US aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN.

One important thing to note: The future of Ukraine will be discussed this week between Americans and Russians, with neither Europeans nor Ukrainians themselves expected at the table. While President Vodolymyr Zelensky said he will also visit Saudi Arabia this week, he won’t participate in the talks. Without Ukrainian involvement in the talks, the president says they amount to nothing. “We can not recognize anything or any agreements about us without us,” he told reporters on Monday.

Emergency summit: European leaders are holding an emergency summit on Ukraine and the security of the entire continent. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described it as a “once in a generation” moment for national security and said he was ready to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine if necessary.

What’s Russia saying: Trump and Putin want to leave behind an “abnormal period” in relations between Washington and Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday. During their phone call last week, the two leaders “agreed on the need to leave behind an absolutely abnormal period in the relations between the two great powers, when they essentially did not communicate, except on certain technical and humanitarian issues,” Lavrov told reporters.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will not participate in this week’s US-Russia negotiations in Riyadh, but that he will travel to Saudi Arabia this week for separate talks with Saudi officials.

The president confirmed he will make an official visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week, but that this meeting is not connected to US-Russia talks that are set to begin Tuesday in Riyadh.

Zelensky added that he will ask Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman what he knows about the negotiations, “just out of interest.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks during a press conference in Moscow, Russia, on Monday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has implied that Moscow is unwilling to make compromises in upcoming talks to end its war in Ukraine.

With discussions between Russian and US officials scheduled to begin Tuesday in Riyadh, the Trump administration has said that both Moscow and Kyiv will have to make painful compromises and concessions to reach a negotiated peace.

In response to a question from CNN on whether Russia was willing to make compromises, however, Lavrov suggested that Moscow would take a hardline approach to negotiations, in a lengthy response littered with historical untruths.

Lavrov said at a Monday news conference in Moscow that territories in “what is now called Ukraine” were “developed by Russian people for centuries.” His comments echoed claims made by President Vladimir Putin in a long 2021 essay, which falsely argued that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people — a single whole.”

Although he praised Ukrainians for helping to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II, Lavrov repeated the Kremlin’s false claims that “Nazi habits” are present in Ukraine and that Ukrainians “act even more viciously than the Hitlerite murderers.” Moscow has long sought to justify its unprovoked invasion by saying Russia must “denazify” Ukraine.

Lavrov also briefly discussed Ukraine’s ongoing occupation of parts of Russia’s Kursk region, following its shock incursion last summer.

“They say that territorial concessions are necessary. For what? So that Russians can be destroyed there like they are now being destroyed in the Kursk region? And in other regions of the Russian Federation.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is received by Saudi Arabia's Deputy Minister for Protocol Affairs Abdulmajeed al-Smari upon arrival at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Monday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will meet with Russia’s delegation in Riyadh Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce has confirmed.

Earlier Monday, the Kremlin said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and presidential aide Yury Ushakov will take part in the talks held in the Saudi capital.

The Trump administration’s desire to bring Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine to a swift end will give Russian President Vladimir Putin “a lot to exploit” during negotiations, according to a leading analyst.

Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told CNN that Donald Trump’s administration has shown it is “anxious to reach an agreement,” which could create openings for Russian officials during talks this week in Saudi Arabia.

With European leaders meeting in Paris on Monday to discuss their response to the US-Russia negotiations, Gould-Davies said there is a risk that Europe will have to implement a peace deal over which its leaders have little say in negotiating.

“It’s the Americans alone who are negotiating with Russia. But the Americans are also saying it is Europe alone who will have to enforce and guarantee and pay for any agreement that the Americans make over their heads,” he said.

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin want to leave behind an “abnormal period” in relations between Washington and Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday.

During their phone call last week, the two leaders “agreed on the need to leave behind an absolutely abnormal period in the relations between the two great powers, when they essentially did not communicate, except on certain technical and humanitarian issues,” Lavrov told reporters.

Lavrov will travel to Saudi Arabia with a delegation of Russian officials ahead of talks with senior Trump administration officials in Riyadh on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said earlier. Apart from discussing US-Russia relations, the talks will also be “dedicated to the preparation of possible negotiations” on the war in Ukraine, Peskov said.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on October 31, 2023.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Saudi Arabia was chosen as the destination for this week’s Ukraine peace talks because it “generally suits” both Russia and the United States.

US President Donald Trump suggested the idea to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during their phone call last Wednesday, Peskov told reporters.

The decision to hold peace talks in the Middle East rather than in Europe, where Russia’s war in Ukraine has raged for nearly three years, has underscored the fear in many European capitals that decisions made about the future security of the continent will be made with limited European input.

As well as discussing US-Russia relations, the talks in Riyadh on Tuesday will also be “dedicated to the preparation of possible negotiations” on the war in Ukraine, and organizing a meeting between Trump and Putin, Peskov said.

A high-level Russian negotiating team is enroute to Riyadh, where it will be briefing Saudi officials ahead of talks with the US aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN.

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund chief, Kirill Dmitriev — now a key Russian negotiator — will meet with the US delegation in Riyadh on Tuesday to focus on strengthening US-Russia ties and economic cooperation, according to the source.

In a call with reporters on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov did not confirm or deny whether Dmitriev would be involved in the discussions.

Some context: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has framed the talks as the first steps of a process to determine whether Russia is serious about ending its war in Ukraine, and indicated that both Ukraine and Europe would be involved in negotiations if talks progress in the right direction.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, on Monday.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and presidential aide Yury Ushakov will travel to Saudi Arabia for discussions with American officials on Tuesday about restoring the “entire complex” of Russia-US relations, the Kremlin said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz will be in Saudi Arabia for the talks, which will discuss peace in Ukraine.

A Saudi official told CNN the kingdom would have a mediation role.

A Ukrainian official said Kyiv was not told about the talks, but Keith Kellogg, the Trump administration’s Russia-Ukraine envoy, discussed a “dual track” set of negotiations and will be in Ukraine this week. On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said the Ukrainians would be part of the negotiations.

President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin is riding high ahead of US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia on ending the Ukraine war.

Donald Trump’s administration has ended the Russian president’s international isolation, shattered Western unity on the conflict and cast doubt on how far the US would go to defend Europe, signaling a stunning shift away from America’s traditional allies.

With a flurry of conflicting statements in their first forays into Europe, Trump aides also fueled concerns that Trump will embrace just about any deal with Putin — even if it’s a bad one for Ukraine and the continent.

Suggestions that the US will exclude European allies from peace talks on Ukraine — despite demanding they provide security guarantees as part of any deal to end the war — triggered alarm on the continent. Trump also sparked fears that Ukraine itself would not be part of talks that are critical to its survival as a nation.

The evolving US line on the peace talks shows that it’s often unwise to overreact to the early US rhetoric before the substance of its position is locked in. Without Trump’s determination to forge ties with Putin, there’d be little hope of ending a vicious war in the coming months. And there still appears to be substantial room for Ukraine and European states to shape negotiations that can be fully successful only with their buy-in.

While most foreign policy realists accept that Ukraine will not get back all the land seized by Russia, Trump was criticized for throwing away leverage with his call with the Russian leader. As was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said that a peace deal would not include a path to NATO membership for Ukraine.

Read the full analysis.

As European leaders scramble to respond to being left out of initial Ukraine peace talks between United States and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, one analyst told CNN a peace deal could be possible “because the US has all of the leverage here.”

“The US is really the interlocutor that Russia wants to speak to,” Matthew Karnitschnig, editor in chief at Euractiv told CNN’s Rosemary Church on Monday.

“It’s really not in Europe’s interest, though, because they are the ones who are going to have to deal with the aftermath of this deal.”

That could involve sending in European peacekeepers if an agreement is reached — a prospect British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already accepted as a possibility.

Karnitschnig said that despite the fact the Europeans have provided a lot of military aid to Ukraine, “the reality is, is that the US is the key player for the Ukraine. Without US aid, Ukraine wouldn’t be able to continue on.”

European leaders feel that they’ve been “locked out” of these negotiations, even though they have the “most at stake here, aside from the Ukrainians,” according to Karnitschnig.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street, London, on October 1.

European leaders will hold an emergency summit on Ukraine today as concern grows that the Trump administration’s push to work with Russia to end the war has left Kyiv isolated.

The continent has been scrambling to respond after US President Donald Trump announced negotiations would begin “immediately” on ending the conflict following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s Russia-Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg said Europe would not be involved.

Trump officials will be in Saudi Arabia for talks on the war with their Russian counterparts, which are expected to start Tuesday, multiple sources told CNN.

Today, the leaders of the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and the Secretary General of NATO, will attend the meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it a “once in a generation” moment for national security.

How we got here: News of the emergency summit came after Trump and his top officials upended in recent days what had largely been a united front between Washington and its European NATO allies on supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, which is nearing its third anniversary.

Trump spoke with both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, while his officials visited Europe and presented elements of a vision for ending the war that appeared to allow for key concessions to Russia and raised fears that Ukraine could be marginalized and Europe left out of peacemaking.

Read more about today’s meeting.

Vice President JD Vance speaks during the 61st Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Friday.

The future of Ukraine will be discussed this week in Saudi Arabia between Americans and Russians, with neither Europeans nor Ukrainians themselves expected at the table. The question for European leaders is: What can any of them do about it?

A hastily organized meeting in Paris is a measure of their concern as they wake up to the reality of Trump 2.0: that their long-standing US ally is no longer much of an ally and may be far more dangerous to them existentially than they had imagined possible only a week ago.

In US Vice President JD Vance’s speech in Munich, he accused European leaders of having betrayed the ideals that allies had fought for during World War II. The danger, he said, was in Europe’s stifling of free speech, warning his audience that they should fear neither Moscow nor Beijing but European leadership itself.

Days earlier, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his NATO counterparts that he couldn’t see Ukraine joining the alliance at all, sweeping aside not just the American position thus far but also what many had considered a key piece of leverage in negotiations with Moscow.

The fear for Europeans is not just that Americans are preparing to negotiate without them but that they are preparing to negotiate badly without them.

Trump appears to have surrounded himself with people who know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to undermining Europe and dismantling NATO. And they are, it seems, done with doing Europe’s bidding. This will make today’s meeting not just about how to help Ukraine, but, at its heart, about how to save Europe itself.

Read the full analysis.

The US Embassy with a US national flag is seen behind a building with a Russian national flag in Moscow on November 5, 2024.

Talks between the United States and Russia to discuss the war in Ukraine are set to begin Tuesday, multiple sources have told CNN.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz will all be in Saudi Arabia for the talks.

A Saudi official told CNN they would be doing more than just hosting and would be involved in a mediation role. The Saudi team will be led by the country’s national security adviser.

A Ukrainian official said they would not be present at the talks though Keith Kellogg, the Trump administration’s Russia-Ukraine envoy, discussed a “dual track” set of negotiations and will be in Kyiv this week.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said the Ukrainians would be part of the negotiations.

On meeting Putin in Saudi Arabia, Trump said: “No time set, but it could be very soon.”

Some context: Trump said that negotiations to end the nearly three-year Ukraine war would start “immediately” after holding a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. The call came as Trump made clear to his advisers that he wanted to bring the Ukraine conflict to a swift end.

Trump has talked openly about the Saudis playing a key role in the negotiations and the country has been an important part of US foreign policy under his presidency.

Ukraine has always called its areas under Russian control “temporarily occupied territories,” insisting it will eventually regain control over them. But that hope is being crushed now.

Last week, US President Donald Trump suggested it was “unlikely” Ukraine would get back much of its occupied land in the peace negotiations he intends to hold with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian forces currently occupy nearly 20% of Ukraine’s territory, up from the roughly 7% it controlled before launching its unprovoked full-scale invasion nearly three years ago.

According to Ukrainian officials, some 6 million people, including 1 million children, live under Russian occupation, in what the United Nations has described as a “bleak human rights situation.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his country would not accept a peace deal struck between the US and Russia without Kyiv’s involvement.

Soldiers fighting on the frontlines are skeptical that negotiations between Trump and Putin could yield a result that would be palatable to many Ukrainians.

Volodymyr Sablyn, a battalion commander in the 66th mechanized brigade, who is fighting near Lyman in the east of the country, said that having Russia take over some of Ukraine’s territory could have dangerous consequences.

Read more on what Ukrainians think about the peace talks.

Steve Witkoff at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 18, 2024.

Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, is playing a central role in the Trump administration’s approach to securing peace in both Gaza and Ukraine.

Here’s what he said on each topic Sunday, ahead of another busy week of diplomacy:

Ukraine war negotiations: Witkoff said he was traveling with a US delegation to Saudi Arabia on Sunday to begin talks with senior Moscow officials aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Witkoff disputed criticism that Ukraine isn’t part of the Saudi Arabia talks, pointing to President Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other high-level Trump officials’ engagement with Ukrainian officials.

He described the upcoming negotiations as “trust-building” toward the ultimate goal of ending the war.

Gaza ceasefire: Witkoff expressed confidence that phase two of the uneasy ceasefire and hostage exchange deal between Israel and Hamas would take place.

“Phase two is absolutely going to begin,” he told Bartiromo, noting that he spoke by phone with leaders in Israel, Qatar and Egypt over the weekend.

Phase two of the ceasefire would include the return of 19 Israel Defense Forces soldiers, whom the US believes to be alive, as well as others, including American citizen Edan Alexander.