After minerals deal, Trump approves arms to Ukraine, plays down peace plan

The Donald Trump administration last week approved its first sale of weapons to Ukraine after signing a memorandum of intent to exploit Ukrainian mineral wealth, suggesting that US foreign and defence policy under its current president will be driven by economic policy.

The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced on May 2 that the Trump administration had approved the sale of parts, maintenance and training for F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine worth $310m.

Defence newspaper The War Zone had previously said decommissioned F-16s were being shipped from a US Air Force graveyard in Arizona to Ukraine for spare parts, and published photos of partially dismantled F-16 fuselages being loaded onto a Ukrainian Antonov-124 transport plane at Tucson International Airport on May 1.

The US sale announcement did not include operational F-16 aircraft or missiles, but European allies of Ukraine have reportedly promised a total of 85 working F-16s.

This sale represented the first military aid from the Trump administration to Ukraine, and the first aid Ukraine would be paying for.

The previous administration of President Joe Biden provided $130bn in financial and military grants to Ukraine.

(Al Jazeera)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy first publicly offered to buy US weapons systems on April 15, specifically asking for Patriot air defence systems.

The US sale followed the April 30 signing of a memorandum by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko to jointly exploit new mineral deposits in Ukraine, including metals, oil and gas.

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” said Bessent.

The memorandum said half of the proceeds from royalties and licensing fees payable to the government of Ukraine will be put into an investment fund for reconstruction purposes. It did not stipulate whether US investors would similarly invest any proportion of their proceeds, or if the US government would facilitate investment. Nor did the memorandum specify a timeframe for investment.

Svyrydenko said the US government would contribute to the reconstruction fund, without specifying how much.

Zelenskyy called it “now truly an equal partnership” in his Mayday evening address and said it would allow the US and Ukraine “to make money in partnership”.

“This partnership sends a strong message to Russia – the United States has skin in the game and is committed to Ukraine’s long-term success,” said a White House statement.

Trump steps back from peace deal

A day after signing the minerals deal, the Trump administration began to distance itself from the prospect of peace in Ukraine, despite Trump’s promise to deliver it quickly after his inauguration.

The administration delivered a ceasefire offer to Russia and Ukraine on April 17, calling it “final”.

“It’s going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict,” US Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on May 1.

“We’re not going to fly around the world organising mediation meetings. Now it’s up to the two sides,” said State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce.

(Al Jazeera)

US Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio told Fox News on the same day, “We’ve got so many, I would argue even more important, issues going on around the world,” referencing “what’s happening in China” and “Iran’s nuclear ambition”.

Whereas Ukraine has agreed to a US 30-day ceasefire proposal, Russia has not, proposing instead a three-day ceasefire to protect 29 international leaders attending a May 9 victory parade in Moscow to mark the end of the Second World War.

Zelenskyy has dismissed that request. On May 9, he called on Putin again to “a 30-day silence. But it must be real. No missile or drone strikes, no hundreds of assaults on the front… The Russians… must prove their willingness to end the war.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded by saying Zelenskyy “unambiguously threatened world leaders”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the point of the three-day truce was “to test Kyiv’s readiness to find ways for a long-term sustainable peace”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, “The ball is not in our court. [Kyiv] has not shown readiness for negotiations so far.”

Is Russia serious about peace?

Russia has prosecuted its war against Ukraine to the fullest, launching 1,300 assaults since the beginning of May.

Russia suffered 35,000 casualties in April, and just less than 126,000 in the first four months of 2025, said Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence – the equivalent of three rifle divisions. During that time, Russia occupied 1,627 sq km (628 square miles), a figure that included the recapture of its own Kursk region in March, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify casualty tolls.

However, the ISW said Russian gains had “slowed as Russian forces come up against more well-defended Ukrainian positions in and around larger towns such as Kupiansk, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Pokrovsk over the last four months”.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii said the main threats were in “primarily Sumy and Kursk, Pokrovsky, Novopavlovsk”.

Russia has been intensifying its use of controlled air bombs (CABs) this year, said Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force, dropping 5,000 in April versus 4,800 in March, 3,370 in February and 1,830 in January.

Ukraine considers these 1.5-tonne bombs one of its biggest difficulties on the front lines. Neutralising Russia’s ability to launch them from planes deep inside Russia was its main reason for requesting long-range strike capability from the former administration of President Joe Biden.

(Al Jazeera)

Russia also stepped up long-range strikes against Ukraine’s cities.

Overnight on May 1, Russia fired five Iskander ballistic missiles and 170 drones and decoys. Two more Iskanders and 183 drones were launched on May 2. The northern city of Kharkiv, just 30km (19 miles) from the Russian border, was particularly hard-hit, with 10 fires recorded in various districts of the city, said the State Emergency Service. Some 44 people were injured. Russia struck Kharkiv again days later, engulfing its commercial market in flames.

Russia launched 165 drones on May 3 and 116 drones along with 2 Iskander missiles the following day. On Wednesday, a ballistic missile and drones struck Kyiv, killing a mother and son.

“The Russians are asking for silence on May 9, but they themselves strike Ukraine every day,” wrote Zelenskyy on Telegram.

The ISW said “the Kremlin is attempting to prolong negotiations to extract additional concessions from the United States and Ukraine.”

Ukraine strikes back

Ukraine held its front line against an escalating Russian onslaught and struck targeted blows against Russia’s military machine.

Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, told The War Zone that Ukrainian Magura-7 unmanned surface drones had successfully downed two Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter jets using AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles originally designed for air-to-air use.

The pilot of the first Russian Su-30 was rescued by a civilian ship near the port of Novorossiysk in the Black Sea. The second Su-30 fell over Crimea. The crew did not survive, said Budanov.

The downing of a Sukhoi by a surface drone was unprecedented, he added.

Ukrainian military intelligence pioneered the use of surface kamikaze drones to strike Russian Black Sea Fleet ships, and on December 31 used them to launch rockets, downing two Russian helicopters.

It was the first time surface drones had been used against air targets – another Ukrainian innovation.

Since late 2022, Ukraine has also pioneered the use of light, first-person-view drones to perform targeted munitions drops on enemy armour and personnel.

“Over the past two months – March and April – our drones have hit and destroyed over 160 thousand enemy targets,” wrote Syrskii on Telegram.

(Al Jazeera)

In April, drones destroyed more than 83,000 targets, 8 percent more than in March, he claimed, lauding the “effectiveness of Ukrainian unmanned systems”.

In addition, he said deep-strike weapons had hit 62 targets on Russian territory in April.

In the past week, Ukrainian drones torched the Fiber Optic Systems plant in Saransk, Republic of Mordovia, for the second time in a month, Russia’s only plant manufacturing fibre-optic cable used in unmanned aerial vehicles. They seemed to have also struck the nearby Saranskkabel machine-building plant.

Ukraine also struck the Instrument-Making Design Bureau in Tula, which produces antitank systems and small arms, as well as the Scientific-Production Association (SPLAV), which produces multiple-launch rocket systems.

Further, Ukraine claimed to have struck airbases in the Moscow and Kaluga regions, housing cruise missiles, Tupolev-22M3 strategic bombers and Su-27 and MiG-29 fighter jets.

“You are writing the history of the modern Ukrainian statehood,” Syrskii wrote on Telegram on Tuesday. “You are the modern history of Ukraine.”

(Al Jazeera)