“The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, told the Financial Times on Tuesday.

A deal giving the United States access to Ukraine's critical and rare-earth minerals is "at the 99 yard line with one inch to go," a senior administration official engaged in the negotiations told NBC News.