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According to President Trump, Ukraine must be guaranteed ‘the right to continue fighting’ in exchange for its minerals. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are scheduled to sign a deal in the White House that will grant Washington access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits.

After revisions and trade of barbs between the two sides, Zelensky appears more open to the current version of a framework agreement on the joint development of Ukraine’s natural resources, despite his previous stance that he “will not sign what ten generations of Ukrainians will have to repay.”

So, how did the deal come together? What does it entail, and what do they each stand to gain? Here is what is known so far.

WHAT DOES THE AGREEMENT ENTAIL?

The deal would establish a fund jointly owned by Ukraine and the United States, to which Ukraine needs to contribute 50 percent of its future revenues from the monetization of natural resources, including minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials and other infrastructure relevant to natural resource assets. The United States would own the maximum financial interest in the fund as allowed by American law.

Just a week ago, Trump called Zelensky a “dictator” and accused him of starting the conflict with Russia. Now, with potential access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth, Trump said he believes that Ukraine should be guaranteed “the right to fight on.”

Earlier, Washington had demanded US$500 billion of resources for the aid it has provided and 100 percent financial interest of a joint fund, terms that the Telegraph newspaper called “economic colonization.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had slammed Trump’s proposal, which tied future military support to access to Ukrainian mineral resources, calling it “very egotistic, very self-centered.”

Before the final draft came off, Washington had been imposing pressures on Ukraine. A U.S. envoy threatened to cut Ukraine’s access to the Starlink satellite Internet system, which provides crucial Internet connectivity to the country and its military, unless a deal on critical minerals is struck.

WHAT DO THE TWO SIDES WANT?

Analysts say that both the United States and Ukraine have their own strategic calculations regarding the minerals deal.

For Washington, accessing Ukraine’s minerals comes at little cost and helps further the “America First” agenda. The United States wants to get some substantial “payback” from previous support to Ukraine, claiming that “the United States has put up far more aid for Ukraine than any other nation.”

Additionally, with the United States heavily reliant on imports for key minerals, Ukraine represents a vast untapped source. Washington is eager to exploit Ukraine’s valuable reserves.

Ukraine, for its part, holds an estimated 5 percent of the world’s “critical raw materials” and deposits of 20 out of the 50 minerals classified as critical for the United States’ economic development and defense, according to the Ukrainian government.

A variety of these key minerals used in the production of batteries, weapons, planes and so on can be found abundant in Ukraine. In exchange, Kiev wants future support and concrete security guarantees from the United States, a key demand that Ukraine is fully committed to securing.

WILL IT GET THROUGH?

Experts have noted that Kiev is now on track to trade its resources for continued U.S. military support and possible mediation to end the ongoing conflict. However, no specific or explicit security guarantees have been made in the deal.

On Thursday, Trump said that a minerals deal with Ukraine is the security guarantee Kiev needs, brushing aside a plea from visiting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a commitment of U.S. military support.

For Washington, the resources of Ukraine may be hard to extract. In the conflict-torn Ukraine with outdated infrastructure, extracting minerals can mean expensive investments.

The deal also complicates the situation on the European continent. During a visit to Kiev, together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Commissioner for Industrial Strategy Stephane Sejourne offered a rival proposal on critical minerals to Ukrainian officials. He noted, “the added value Europe offers is that we will never demand a deal that’s not mutually beneficial.”

The coalition includes the People’s Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the New Austria Party. On Thurday, the Austrian People’s Party, the Social Democratic Party and the New Austria Party (NEOS) have agreed to form a coalition government without the far-right Freedom Party.

The three parties are set to present their joint government program, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported. The new government could be sworn in as early as Monday. The parties have been negotiating to form a government after Freedom Party-led coalition talks with the center-right People’s Party collapsed in mid-February.

In the Austrian parliamentary elections in September 2024, the Freedom Party emerged as the leading party with approximately 29 percent of the vote, followed by the People’s Party with 26.3 percent and the Social Democrats with 21.1 percent. NEOS secured the fourth place.

Despite its leading position, the Freedom Party was initially excluded from coalition talks by all major parties. Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen first tasked the People’s Party with forming a government in October, but three-party negotiations with the Social Democrats and NEOS collapsed in early January.

A subsequent attempt at a People’s Party-Social Democratic Party coalition also failed. In mid-January, Van der Bellen granted the Freedom Party the mandate to form a government.

Foreign adversaries including Russia and China have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up recruiting of US federal employees working in national security, targeting those who have been fired or feel they could be soon, according to four people familiar with recent US intelligence on the issue and a document reviewed by CNN.

The intelligence indicates that foreign adversaries are eager to exploit the Trump administration’s efforts to conduct mass layoffs across the federal workforce – a plan laid out by the Office of Personnel Management earlier this week.

Russia and China are focusing their efforts on recently fired employees with security clearances and probationary employees at risk of being terminated, who may have valuable information about US critical infrastructure and vital government bureaucracy, two of the sources said. At least two countries have already set up recruitment websites and begun aggressively targeting federal employees on LinkedIn, two of the sources said.

A document produced by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said the intelligence community assessed with “high confidence” that foreign adversaries were trying to recruit federal employees and “capitalize” on the Trump administration’s plans for mass layoffs, according to a partly redacted copy reviewed by CNN.

It added that foreign intelligence officers were being directed to look for potential sources on LinkedIn, TikTok, RedNote and Reddit.

At least one foreign intelligence officer directed an asset to create a company profile on Linkedin and post a job advertisement, and to actively pursue federal employees who indicate they are “open to work,” the NCIS document says.

The adversaries think the employees “are at their most vulnerable right now,” another of the sources said. “Out of a job, bitter about being fired, etc.”

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that these cast aside federal workers with a wealth of institutional knowledge represent staggeringly attractive targets to the intelligence services of our competitors and adversaries,” a third source familiar with the recent US assessments told CNN.

The intelligence seems to confirm what was previously a hypothetical fear for current and US officials: that the mass firings could offer a rich recruitment opportunity for foreign intelligence services that might seek to exploit financially vulnerable or resentful former employees. The Justice Department has charged multiple former military and intelligence officials for providing US intelligence to China in recent years.

“China has always been committed to developing relations with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs,” said Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu. “We oppose groundless speculation on China without factual basis.”

CNN has reached out to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as well as the embassy of Russia in Washington for comment.

Officials have been discussing the risk Career officials at the CIA have been quietly discussing that risk and how to mitigate it in the recent weeks, current and former intelligence officials previously told CNN. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this week suggested that those discussions represented a “threat” made by disloyal government employees — rather than a clinical warning of the potential risks posed by President Donald Trump’s aggressive cost-cutting strategy — and that those involved should be penalized.

“I am curious about how they think this is a good tactic to keep their job,” Gabbard told Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Tuesday. “They’re exposing themselves essentially by making this indirect threat using their propaganda arm through CNN that they’ve used over and over and over again to reveal their hand, that their loyalty is not at all to America. It is not to the American people or the Constitution. It is to themselves.

“And these are exactly the kind of people that we need to root out, get rid of so that the patriots who do work in this area, who are committed to our core mission can actually focus on that,” she said.

Multiple current officials across national security agencies who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity expressed frustration at the administration’s response to what they see as very real warnings — not partisan swiping.

“Employees that feel they have been mistreated by an employer have historically been much more likely to disclose sensitive information,” said Holden Triplett, who served as director of counterintelligence at the National Security Council in the first Trump administration and is a former FBI attaché at the US embassies in Moscow and Beijing. “We may be creating, albeit somewhat unintentionally, the perfect recruitment environment.”

‘This isn’t reality TV’ “This isn’t reality TV,” said another former intelligence official. “There are consequences.”

The CIA and Defense Department are weighing significant staff cuts. The Pentagon said in a memo last week that over 5,000 probationary employees, who in most cases have been in their job a year or less, could be fired in the short term. And the CIA has already fired more than 20 officers for their work on diversity issues, many of whom are now challenging their dismissal in court.

The CIA also aggressively seeks to recruit disaffected government employees in adversarial countries “all the time,” noted a former intelligence official — using similar tactics. The agency has released a series of public recruitment videos aimed at persuading disgruntled Russian government employees to spy for the United States, videos that detailed ways to securely contact the agency.

“’Domestic political turbulence in your country? Sign up with us to help us help your country!’” the former official paraphrased the US efforts, adding that those efforts deeply aggravate foreign governments.

The CIA may have already inadvertently put some American secrets within the grasp of foreign spies and hackers. In an effort to comply with the executive order to downsize the federal workforce, the CIA earlier this month sent the White House an extraordinarily unusual email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less — a list that included CIA officers who were preparing to operate under cover — over an unclassified email server.

Some of those officers, who have had access to classified information about the agency’s operations and tradecraft, may now be terminated as part of the layoffs.

The Argentine president, Javier Milei, will open this Saturday night the legislative session before a half-day Congress, due to the absence of 50% of the opposition. The scandal over the ‘cryptofiasco’ $LIBRA, the appointment by decree of two judges of the Supreme Court and the request to resign from the governor Axel Kicillof to intervene in the province of Buenos Aires for cases of insecurity, were some of the factors that motivated the absence of opponents.

Deputies, senators and governors of Unión Por la Patria have announced in a statement that they will not be present this March 1 at the opening of 143° ordinary sessions, considering that the country lives under “an increasingly authoritarian and violent government”.

The Argentine left bloc also decided to leave, while the so-called ‘dialogist opposition’ – which has sought consensus with the government-will have a reduced presence.

The president of the centrist Radical Civic Union (UCR), Martin Lousteau, confirmed on his social networks that he will not attend, nor will some legislators from the center-right Federal Meeting and the Civic Coalition (center).

The presence of 329 legislators, consisting of 257 deputies and 72 senators, as well as all 23 governors and the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires is ruled out. So far, only three leaders have confirmed their presence, although others could send their deputy governors on their behalf.

Under an aesthetic similar to that of last year, the head of state will speak from a lectern by national network from 21:00 hours, the time of greatest audience on Argentine television, trying to imitate the style of American presidents during their state of the Union speeches.

The rest of the reserved seats and boxes will be occupied by representatives of the ultra-right Libertad Avanza, Milei’s party, and its allies from the conventional right Propuesta Republicana (PRO), who for about 45 minutes will appreciate from the front row the political agenda of the Executive for this 2025.