What is behind the resurgence of vehicular-ramming terror attacks?

Analysis What is behind the resurgence of vehicular-ramming terror attacks?
Since the turn of the century, terrorism has shaped global debates and drastically influenced government policies and budgets. (AFP)
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Updated 14 January 2025
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What is behind the resurgence of vehicular-ramming terror attacks?

What is behind the resurgence of vehicular-ramming terror attacks?
  • Bollards and urban design changes reduce VAW risks but aren't foolproof — a multi-layered approach is essential, says counterterrorism expert
  • Geofencing and blockchain forensics are emerging tools to track suspicious transactions and block vehicles from high-risk areas

LONDON: Vehicles have a long history as tools of terror, but their use has surged in recent years, becoming a preferred method for attackers seeking to cause mass casualty events, creating headaches for security agencies.

On Jan. 1, at approximately 3:15 p.m. local time, a Ford pickup truck plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. The FBI has classified the attack as terrorism.

The driver, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a Texas native, was found to have a Daesh flag inside the vehicle. Before he was shot dead by police, Jabbar recorded videos referencing his divorce and how he joined Daesh earlier in the summer, authorities revealed.

Initially believed to have acted alone, investigators said on Monday they were pursuing leads related to his recent travels to Egypt, Canada, and several US cities.

On the same day as the New Orleans attack, another incident took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, when a Tesla Cybertruck packed with explosives burst into flames outside the Trump International Hotel.

The perpetrator, Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret and highly decorated soldier from Colorado Springs, refrained from labeling his actions as terrorism.




A Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel on Jan. 1. (AFP)

In notes discovered by authorities, Livelsberger, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, described the act as a “wake-up call” rather than a terrorist attack. Despite this, the method — the use of a vehicle as a weapon — was a common feature.

Earlier in December, a rented black BMW SUV was driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, central Germany, killing six and injuring almost 300. The suspect, Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, a German citizen of Saudi origin, was arrested at the scene.

While his social media history revealed anti-Islam and anti-immigration remarks, German authorities are continuing to search for a motive, emphasizing that he appeared to have acted alone.

While these incidents may seem unrelated, they again share a critical commonality: the weapon of choice.

“While accessibility is a key factor, vehicles also appeal to terrorists for strategic and technological reasons,” Danielle Cosgrove, a member of the Counterterrorism Group at the Atlantic Council, told Arab News.

“Their widespread availability and ability to blend into myriad environments allow attackers to operate under the radar,” she said, adding that platforms like peer-to-peer car rental services — including Turo, which was used by both US attackers — coupled with cryptocurrency payments, have made it easier for attackers to rent vehicles anonymously, avoiding traditional paper trails.




An artist lights candles at a memorial on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Getty Images/AFP)

Since the turn of the century, terrorism has shaped global debates and drastically influenced government policies and budgets. According to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, the US alone — by far the largest spender — allocated around $8 trillion to the global war on terror between 2001 and 2022.

Despite this immense expenditure, the number of “vehicle-as-a-weapon,” or VAW, attacks has risen. More than 40 such incidents have occurred globally in recent years, although the exact figure varies due to inconsistent reporting and regional definitions.

A 2019 study by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University found that the majority of these attacks took place in Israel and the West Bank.

FASTFACTS

• Vehicle-as-a-weapon attacks have surged globally, with more than 40 incidents in recent years targeting crowded areas.

• Groups like Daesh and Al-Qaeda promote vehicle attacks for their accessibility, ease of use, and high casualty potential.

• Experts advocate AI surveillance, stricter rental policies, and smart urban designs to prevent future vehicle-based attacks.


“Vehicle-based attacks remain prevalent because they are able to exploit gaps in both physical security and digital infrastructure,” Cosgrove said.

She explained that while “modern counterterrorism efforts have become highly effective at identifying organized plots, lone-wolf terrorists — often radicalized online — pose a different kind of challenge.”

Although terrorist groups began using ramming attacks in the 1990s, calls for such attacks intensified a decade later. In 2010, Al-Qaeda encouraged its followers through its magazine, Inspire, to use vehicles to “mow down the enemies of Allah.”




A car drives through the annual Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. (CCTV Video)

The tactic — propelled by the rise of online forums and propaganda networks offering tactical guidance, including detailed step-by-step instructions — gained momentum years later, as groups like Daesh and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula publicly advocated for vehicle-based attacks, recommending four-wheel-drive pickup trucks for their strength and effectiveness in targeting crowded places such as markets and public events.

“Beyond logistical ease, vehicles create mass casualties in crowded areas and generate widespread media attention, aligning with terrorists’ goals of fear and disruption,” Cosgrove said.

In one of the deadliest VAW attacks in history, in July 2016, more than 80 people were killed and hundreds injured when a man drove a 19-ton truck through a crowd gathered to watch Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, southern France, before the driver was shot dead by police at the scene.

Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it a “special operation using a truck” carried out by one of its “soldiers” — Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian man with French residency status.

However, despite a 2022 French court sentencing eight individuals for aiding the attack, authorities found no concrete links between the perpetrator and the extremist group. The case highlighted what officials called “the extreme difficulty of the fight against terrorism.”

“The biggest challenge in spotting these attacks before they happen lies in identifying intent rather than capability,” said Cosgrove, explaining that vehicles, being easily accessible and requiring limited training or skill, allow attackers to “operate under the radar.”

She added that the “rise of AI-driven radicalization also complicates early intervention, as lone wolves often operate outside of traditional terrorist networks in spite of ideological backing.”




People attend a commemoration after the Christmas market car-ramming attack in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. (AFP)

While Daesh has claimed many VAW attacks in the US and Europe — where access to firearms is more restricted — authorities have struggled to establish concrete links beyond ideological inspiration. Regardless of the motives, such attacks have proven extremely difficult to prevent.

Following a wave of vehicle ramming incidents between 2014 and 2017, many cities implemented urban design changes, such as installing barriers and bollards. Yet, Cosgrove says these measures provide only limited reassurance.

“To mitigate these risks, cities and countries should adopt a multi-layered approach,” she said.

This includes artificial-intelligence-powered surveillance to flag anomalies such as erratic driving or rapid vehicle rentals under different aliases, stricter regulations for rental platforms such as “know your customer” policies, geofencing, smart urban design to limit access to high-risk areas, and blockchain forensics to track suspicious transactions tied to vehicle rentals or extremist financing.

However, with the rapid advance of technologies like self-driving cars, Cosgrove says authorities must act swiftly to address potential vulnerabilities. “Self-driving cars introduce both risks and opportunities,” she said.




Police secured the area where a car exploded in Las Vegas. (Getty Images/AFP)

“On one hand, autonomous vehicles could be hijacked digitally, turning them into remotely controlled weapons. On the other hand, self-driving technology also presents opportunities for prevention,” allowing autonomous technology to be programmed with safeguards like geofencing to block entry into pedestrian zones or high-risk areas.

“The key challenge will be cybersecurity. As autonomous vehicles become more widespread, policymakers ought to prioritize regulations to close vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

“Strengthening digital security, enforcing smarter regulations, and designing urban defenses must go hand in hand to address both physical and digital vulnerabilities in the fight against terrorism in a digital age.”

 


Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties

Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties
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Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties

Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties
  • According to the ministry statement, HLSCC will provide “strategic direction to further strengthening the bilateral relations between the two countries”

ISLAMABAD: Turkiye’s president, accompanied by a high-level delegation, arrived in Pakistan’s capital late Wednesday night on a two-day visit to discuss how to boost trade and economic ties between the nations, officials said.
When his plane landed at an airport near Islamabad, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan was received by his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and other senior government officials.
Erdogan is visiting Pakistan at the invitation of Sharif, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It said the Turkish president will jointly chair “the 7th Session of the Pakistan-Turkiye High Level Strategic Cooperation Council (HLSCC)” and the sides are expected to sign a number of agreements.
Erdogan will have bilateral meetings with Zardari and Sharif on Thursday.
According to the ministry statement, HLSCC will provide “strategic direction to further strengthening the bilateral relations between the two countries.”
The statement said “Pakistan and Turkiye are bound by historic fraternal ties” and the visit by Erdogan “would serve to further deepen the brotherly relations and enhance multifaceted cooperation between the two countries”.
Pakistan, which has witnessed a surge in militant violence in recent months, has deployed additional police officers and paramilitary forces to ensure the security of the Turkish leader and his delegation.
The visit comes hours after the US Embassy issued a travel advisory, citing a threat by Pakistani Taliban against the Faisal mosque in Islamabad and asked its citizens to avoid visits to the mosque and nearby areas until further notice.


US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia

US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia
Updated 15 min 27 sec ago
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US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia

US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia
  • The statements by Trump and Hegseth offered the clearest look yet at how the new administration might try to end Europe’s largest land war in generations

BRUSSELS: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia and instead prepare for a negotiated peace settlement to be backed up by international troops.
Hours later, President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to begin negotiations on ending the Ukraine war. In a social media post that upended three years of US policy toward Ukraine, the Republican disclosed a call between the two leaders and said they would “work together, very closely.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said Zelensky and Trump also had a phone conversation.
Taken together, the statements by Trump and Hegseth offered the clearest look yet at how the new administration might try to end Europe’s largest land war in generations.
Hegseth’s warning to Ukraine that it should abandon its NATO bid and its push to reclaim all Russian-occupied territory signaled starkly to Kyiv that the administration’s view of a potential settlement is remarkably close to Moscow’s vision. Putin has declared that any peace deal must ensure that Ukraine gives up its NATO ambitions and withdraws its troops from the four regions that Russia annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured.
In sweeping remarks to allies eager to hear how much continued support Washington intends to provide to the Ukrainian government, Hegseth indicated that Trump is determined to get Europe to assume most of the financial and military responsibilities for the defense of Ukraine, including a possible peacekeeping force that would not include US troops.
Making the first trip to NATO by a member of the new Trump administration, the defense secretary also said the force should not have Article 5 protections, which could require the US or the 31 other nations of the NATO alliance to come to the aid of those forces if they are attacked by Russian forces.
The secretary’s comments were sure to dim Ukraine’s hopes of making itself whole again and to complicate talks later this week between Zelensky and US Vice President JD Vance and other senior American officials at a major security security conference in Munich.
“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth said, as Kyiv’s backers gathered at NATO headquarters for a meeting to drum up more arms and ammunition for the war, which will soon enter its fourth year.
All 32 allies must agree for a country to join NATO, meaning that every member has a veto.
“Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” Hegseth said. “To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine.”
Other Western allies said the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO needs to stay on the table.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said NATO “is still the main guarantee of security for European countries.”
Asked about Trump’s phone call with Putin, Barrot said that abandoning Ukraine would “entrench the law of the strongest. It would be an invitation to all the world’s tyrants and despots to invade their neighbors with complete impunity.”
Hegseth insisted that NATO should play no role in any future military mission to police the peace in Ukraine and that any peacekeeping troops should not be covered by the part of NATO’s founding treaty that obliges all allies to come to the aid of any member under attack.
Article 5 has been activated only once, when European allies and Canada used it to help the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.
Hegseth also said Europe “must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine.” Ukraine currently relies equally on Europe and the US for about 30 percent each of its defense needs. The rest is produced by Ukraine itself.
Speaking with the allies of Ukraine known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Hegseth also insisted that Ukraine’s Western backers must abandon the “illusionary goal” of returning the country to its pre-2014 borders, before Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and seized parts of eastern Ukraine.
“Members of this contact group must meet the moment,” Hegseth said to the approximately 50 member countries that have provided support to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
In his social media post, Trump said he and Putin “talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place” in the war.
Trump said the two leaders “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.”
Zelensky said he had a “meaningful conversation” with Trump about “opportunities to achieve peace.” He said Trump shared details of his conversation with Putin.
“No one wants peace more than Ukraine,” Zelensky posted on X. “Together with the US, we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done. We agreed to maintain further contact and plan upcoming meetings.”
Talking to reporters after the NATO meeting, UK Defense Secretary John Healey said Hegseth’s words would not go unheeded.
“We heard his call for European nations to step up. We are, and we will,” Healey said.
Healey underlined that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. That is a process that will take some time.”
He also announced that Britain would provide Ukraine with a fresh $187 million “firepower package,” including drones, tanks and air-defense systems.
Over nearly three years, those 50 countries have collectively provided Ukraine with more than $126 billion in weapons and military assistance, including more than $66.5 billion from the US, which has served as the chair of the group since its creation.
Hegseth’s trip comes less than two weeks before the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Most US allies fear that Putin won’t stop at Ukraine’s borders if he wins.
Trump has promised to end the war quickly. He’s complained that it’s costing American taxpayers too much money and suggested that Ukraine should pay for US support with access to its rare earth minerals, energy and other resources.
On Wednesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was in Kyiv to discuss a potential economic cooperation agreement with Ukraine that Trump is pushing as part of the foundation for a larger peace deal.
 


US lawmakers join Trump-Musk government shakeup effort

US lawmakers join Trump-Musk government shakeup effort
Updated 52 min 56 sec ago
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US lawmakers join Trump-Musk government shakeup effort

US lawmakers join Trump-Musk government shakeup effort
WASHINGTON: Republicans vowed Wednesday to tackle the “stunning” US national debt, as lawmakers began work on President Donald Trump’s plan for the most radical downsizing of the federal government in decades.
The House of Representatives Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee will be the legislative arm of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts as Trump’s right-hand man to save $1 trillion by attacking fraud and waste.
Its first hearing — “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud” — featured testimony from a former FBI agent and the head of a welfare fraud watchdog.
“This committee will be laser-focused on bringing full transparency to waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government, and presenting the plans to fix the tremendous problems we expose,” chair Marjorie Taylor Greene said in her opening statement.
The hearing was convened with government workers staging demonstrations against deep staffing cuts ordered by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Critics say the world’s richest man has enormous conflicts of interest as a major government contractor, although Trump — without producing any evidence — claims his “efficiency czar” has uncovered tens of billions of dollars in fraud.
Republicans have largely backed the DOGE agenda, although funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health have been met with mild dissent.
A prominent voice on the party’s hard right with a history of bigoted comments, Greene has been brought from the fringes into the center of Republican politics as Trump’s influence has grown.
“We, as a country, are $36 trillion in debt. That is such a stunning amount of money,” she told the panel.
“It’s absolutely staggering to even comprehend how we as a people, we as a country, found ourselves here.”


Musk, newly emboldened by a Trump executive order giving him a veto over government hiring and firing, told reporters in the White House on Tuesday that DOGE was “maximally transparent.”
And Trump’s spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, accused district courts “in liberal districts” of abusing their power — although DOGE’s defeats have been delivered by judges nominated by presidents from both parties.
Democrats, initially open to the concept of DOGE, have soured on Musk over his efforts to dismantle federal agencies, which they say are unlawful and shrouded in secrecy.
Melanie Stansbury, the panel’s top Democrat, mocked Republicans for making strident pledges to save money while proposing a budget that would lift the national borrowing limit by $4 trillion.
Trump and Musk are facing multiple legal challenges, however, as they try to lift emergency orders blocking the dismantling of federal agencies, holds on grants and the firing of government watchdogs.
The White House lost an appeal in Boston on Tuesday upholding a decision to block Trump’s freeze in federal grants and loans.
On the same day, Trump fired an inspector general overseeing USAID, after the nonpartisan official filed a report critical of efforts to close the agency.
As with all his firings of inspectors general, the move looks on its face to be illegal as Congress is supposed to be given 30 days’ notice.
Meanwhile the Homeland Security Department fired the Federal Emergency Management Agency chief financial officer and three other employees for approving payments for migrant housing in hotels.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is in charge of a budget of almost $900 billion, told Axios he plans to welcome Musk and “the keen eye of DOGE” to scrutinize its spending “very soon.”

White House says judges balking at Trump’s actions are provoking a ‘constitutional crisis’

White House says judges balking at Trump’s actions are provoking a ‘constitutional crisis’
Updated 59 min 6 sec ago
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White House says judges balking at Trump’s actions are provoking a ‘constitutional crisis’

White House says judges balking at Trump’s actions are provoking a ‘constitutional crisis’
  • The focus on the courts has intensified as the other long-standing check on the presidency, the Congress, is Republican-controlled and has largely gone along with Trump’s unilateral actions, including his firing of government watchdogs

WASHINGTON: The White House said Wednesday that court rulings going against the Trump administration are coming from “judicial activists” on the bench whose decisions amount to a “constitutional crisis.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made the comments as she pushed back against critics of Republican President Donald Trump’s expansive actions slashing the government workforce and federal spending.
“We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law,” Leavitt said.
Trump’s moves in the first weeks of his second term to overhaul the federal government and fulfill his campaign promises have been met with more than 50 lawsuits, with judges blocking some of his administration’s moves at least temporarily. Top administration officials have responded by attacking the legitimacy of judicial oversight, one of the foundations of America’s democracy which is based on the separation of powers.
The focus on the courts has intensified as the other long-standing check on the presidency, the Congress, is Republican-controlled and has largely gone along with Trump’s unilateral actions, including his firing of government watchdogs.
When asked Wednesday if the White House believes the courts have the authority to issue nationwide injunctions to Trump’s orders, Leavitt said the rulings “have no basis in the law” and “have no grounds.” She said the White House would comply with the courts but believed the administration would “ultimately be vindicated.”
“This is part of a larger, concerted effort by Democrat activists, and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump,” Leavitt said, referring to Trump’s personal legal challenges, including the criminal trial in New York in which he was convicted last year.
Judges have blocked, at least temporarily, his effort to end birthright citizenship, permit access to Treasury Department records by billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and roll out a mass deferred resignation plan for federal workers.
Musk, the world’s richest man who has been given far-reaching powers by Trump to shrink the federal government, has posted on social media that judges who rule against the administration should be impeached.
“A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!” Musk wrote about the judge in the Treasury Department case. Vice President JD Vance said Sunday on X, ” If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
As court cases pile up, questions have arisen about whether Trump, pushing to expand the limits of presidential power, would comply with court rulings.
Trump on Tuesday said he would, but suggested he would consider some kind of response to the judges and called their actions a “violation.”
“It seems hard to believe that a judge could say, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’ So maybe we have to look at the judges because that’s very serious, I think it’s a very serious violation,” Trump said.
Leavitt made clear that Trump’s team will also “seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure President Trump’s policies can be enacted,” she said.


Trump makes first big foray into Ukraine diplomacy, speaking to Putin, Zelensky

Donald Trump discussed war in Ukraine on Wednesday in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President
Donald Trump discussed war in Ukraine on Wednesday in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President
Updated 12 February 2025
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Trump makes first big foray into Ukraine diplomacy, speaking to Putin, Zelensky

Donald Trump discussed war in Ukraine on Wednesday in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President
  • Putin last spoke to a sitting US president in February 2022 when he had a call with Joe Biden shortly before ordering thousands of troops into Ukraine

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW/KYIV: Donald Trump discussed the war in Ukraine on Wednesday in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the new US president’s first big step toward diplomacy over a war he has promised to end.
In a post on his social media platform after speaking to Putin, Trump said they had “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately,” and that he would begin by phoning Zelensky.
After speaking to the Ukrainian leader, Trump said: “The conversation went very well. He, like President Putin, wants to make PEACE.”
Zelensky’s office said Trump and Zelensky had spoken by phone for about an hour, while the Kremlin said Putin’s call with Trump lasted nearly an hour and a half.
“I had a meaningful conversation with @POTUS. We... talked about opportunities to achieve peace, discussed our readiness to work together ...and Ukraine’s technological capabilities... including drones and other advanced industries,” Zelensky wrote on X.
The Kremlin said Putin and Trump had agreed to meet, and Putin had invited Trump to visit Moscow.
Trump has long said he would quickly end the war in Ukraine, without spelling out exactly how he would accomplish this.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump’s Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, delivered the new administration’s bluntest statement so far on its approach to the war, saying recovering all of Ukraine’s territory occupied by Russia since 2014 was unrealistic, as was securing its membership in NATO.
“We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” Hegseth told a meeting of Ukraine and more than 40 allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”
Hegseth said any durable peace must include “robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again.” But he said US troops would not be deployed to Ukraine as part of such guarantees.
“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
France, Germany and Spain said Ukraine’s fate must not be decided without Kyiv’s active participation, with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot saying Europe would play its role in offering security guarantees for Ukraine even if NATO membership were not immediate.

Zelensky offers minerals
Zelensky, hoping to keep Trump interested in continuing to support his country, has lately proposed a deal under which the United States would invest in minerals in Ukraine.
Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in Kyiv on Wednesday on the first visit by a cabinet member in the new US administration, said such a mineral deal could serve as a “security shield” for Ukraine after the war.
No peace talks have been held since the early months of the conflict, now approaching its third anniversary. Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden and most Western leaders held no direct discussions with Putin after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
During the war’s first year, Ukraine succeeded in pushing Russian forces back from the outskirts of Kyiv and recapturing swathes of Russian-occupied territory.
But Moscow has mostly had the upper hand since a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023, making slow but steady gains in intense fighting that has killed or injured hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides and laid Ukrainian cities to waste.
Russia occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and has demanded Kyiv cede more territory and be rendered permanently neutral under any peace deal. Ukraine demands Russia withdraw from captured territory and says it must receive NATO membership or equivalent security guarantees to prevent Moscow from attacking again.
In recent discussions, Kyiv appears to have accepted that it will not be admitted to NATO soon but has emphasized its need for military support under a peace deal.
“If Ukraine is not in NATO, it means that Ukraine will build NATO on its territory. So we need an army as numerous as the Russians have today,” Zelensky said in an interview with The Economist published on Wednesday.
“And for all this, we need weapons and money. And we will ask the US for this,” Zelensky said, describing that as his “Plan B.”