UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky said today that a framework economic deal with the United States is now ready for signing.

But Mr Zelensky said there was still no settlement over the security guarantees that Kiev wants from the US.

Mr Zelensky is due in Washington DC on Friday for what are being described as wide-ranging substantive talks with US President Donald Trump.

The Ukrainian president told a news conference in Kiev that he sees  the framework deal as a first step toward a comprehensive agreement that will be subject to ratification by Ukraine’s parliament.

He insisted that Ukraine needs to know where the US stands on its continued military support.

Mr Zelensky said the main topics that he wants to discuss with Mr Trump are whether the US plans to halt military aid and, if so, whether Ukraine would be able to purchase weapons directly from the US.

He also wants to know whether Ukraine can use frozen Russian assets for weapons investments and whether Washington plans to lift sanctions on Russia.

Earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that Ukraine and the US have reached preliminary agreement on a broad economic deal that includes US access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals amid its war with Russia.

After days of negotiations, Ukraine and the US will sign the preliminary agreement, but with further details of a full agreement, including US security guarantees, still to be worked out, Mr Shmyhal said on Ukrainian public television.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr Trump said he’d heard that Mr Zelensky was coming and added that “it’s OK with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me.”

Mr Trump called it a big deal that could be worth a trillion dollars. “It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things."

The draft reportedly does not now include a contentious US proposal to give the US $500 billion (around £401bn) worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kiev.

Instead, the US and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would in the future contribute 50 per cent of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil and gas. 

The progress in negotiating the deal comes after the US and Ukrainian leaders traded sharp rhetoric which included Mr Trump accusing Mr Zelensky of being “a dictator without elections” and claimed his support among voters was near rock-bottom.