The United States and Ukraine are close to finalizing a rare earth minerals agreement, which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called both "good" and "important," on Tuesday, as Ukrainian officials told the Financial Times that Kyiv had accepted the revised terms after Washington dropped its demand for Ukraine to repay $500 billion.

"So my last indication was that it was very close to the finish line ... So it's close, and it's good, look, it's a good deal. It's an important deal," Rubio said in a Fox News interview, noting that Trump "wants the war to stop, and to do that, you have to have both sides agree to it. Now, we talked to Zelenskyy. I think what the president was irritated by, and rightfully so, was this argument that somehow we haven't talked to Ukraine."

This announcement comes amid efforts by Russia and the United States to resolve diplomatic issues and work towards an end to the war in Ukraine, following a phone call between Putin and Trump who described it as "lengthy" and "very productive".

When asked about Russia's intentions of ending the war in Ukraine, Rubio said that they are going to going to test it. We told them: 'Do you guys want to end the war? Do you want to continue? If you want to end the war, we can talk about what it would take to end it from their perspective. If you want to continue on the war, just tell us now."

Dispute between the US and Ukraine over minerals

Ukraine has large reserves of rare earth minerals, including the highly sought lithium, an essential component in mobile phones and electric vehicle batteries.

The United States and Ukraine had a row over Kyiv's rare earth minerals after US President Donald Trump said that he told them [Ukraine] that he wants the equivalent of $500B worth of rare earth. And they've essentially agreed to do that so at least we don’t feel stupid," in a Fox News interview on February 11.

Zelensky rejected a US proposal that would grant the United States the right to half of Ukraine's future minerals reserves, in return for continued military and financial aid, contradicting Trump's claim that Ukraine "essentially agreed" to the request.

By February 24, Kyiv announced that they were finalizing the terms for a deal that would see, following tense negotiations between the two countries after the US failed to provide critical security guarantees to Ukraine.

Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister who led the negotiations, stated to the Financial Times that "only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture."