UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that he was still “ready to sign” a minerals deal with the United States.

This came after Mr Zelensky stormed out of the White House last Friday after a heated row with US President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance in front of the media in the Oval Office, leaving the deal unsigned.

Mr Zelensky told the BBC on Sunday that he remained willing to engage in a “constructive dialogue” with the US despite the row, adding: “I just want the Ukrainian position to be heard.

“We want our partners to remember who the aggressor is in this war.”

Mr Zelensky hoped that the proposed minerals deal would secure security guarantees from the United States should Russia violate any ceasefire.

But Mr Trump has refused to provide such guarantees, and has opened direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant told CBS News on Sunday that it was “impossible” to reach an economic deal with Ukraine without a peace agreement.

Mr Bessant said Mr Zelensky had “thrown off the sequencing”of the economic and peace deals.

The treasury secretary said the “most tragic part” of Friday's episode is that Mr Trump’s plan was to use the economic arrangement to “further intertwine the American and Ukrainian people” and to “show the Russian leadership that there was no daylight” between them.

“[Yet] President Zelensky came into the Oval Office and tried to relitigate the deal in front of the world,” Mr Bessent said, arguing that he should have done so behind closed doors.

Yesterday Mr Trump criticised Mr Zelensky again, after the latter said peace with Rusia was “far away.”

The US president said this “was the worst statement that could have been made by Zelensky... and America will not put up with it for much longer.”

Mr Zelensky says he sees no need to make amends for the row and is opposed to an immediate ceasefire.