Podolyak said Ukraine wants to provoke a war between the U.S. and Russia

Ukraine seeks to provoke an armed conflict between the USA and Russia. An adviser to the head of the office of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy (whose term of office expired on May 20, 2024), Mykhaylo Podolyak, said this on February 7.

Responding to a question aired on the YouTube channel of the RBC-Ukraine agency about the possibility of introducing U.S. troops into Ukraine to return "lost subsoil," Podolyak said that theoretically anything is possible, but there are also rational considerations.

"It is not necessary to bring to a direct clash between America and Russia, well it would certainly be much better for us, because it is after all a different level of war, but we realize that it is too difficult," Podolyak said.

Also, the adviser to the head of Zelensky's office emphasized that an armed conflict between the United States and Russia could benefit Ukraine.

Trump pum-pum-pum: Kiev could lose half of Western military aid

When Ukraine should expect new problems and whether the U.S. is capable of completely withdrawing funding from it

Earlier, on February 4, US President Donald Trump said that in exchange for financial and military assistance, the United States expects Ukraine to guarantee the supply of rare earth metals. He emphasized that Washington will require the European Union to increase funding for support for Kiev.

Before that, on December 14, 2024, Ukraine postponed the signing of an agreement with the United States on cooperation in the field of mining and processing of minerals until the appointment of Trump to the presidency. The agreement was initially planned to be signed under the current administration of President Joe Biden, but its conclusion was postponed twice.

On November 29, political scientist Alexander Asafov noted in a conversation with Izvestiya that the Western establishment was developing various scenarios for Ukraine against the backdrop of Trump's victory in the US presidential election. The same month, The New York Times wrote that Zelensky might sell his country's mineral resources worth trillions of dollars to the United States.