The president appears to have adopted a proposal first made last year that offers “strategic partners” such as the U.S. special access to Ukraine's glut of natural resources.

President Donald Trump on Monday indicated that he wants to reach an agreement with Ukraine to gain access to the country’s rare earth elements as a condition for continuing U.S. support for its war against Russia.

It will be three years since Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered his army to invade neighbouring Ukraine on February 24. Mr Putin said Russia was intervening as an act of self-defence. Russia did not want to occupy Ukraine, he said, but would demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the country.