NEW YORK, February 20. /TASS/. The era of war in Ukraine is over, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said.

"Not everyone has gotten the message that the era of an endless grinding war with death and destruction on all sides, costing hundreds of billions [of dollars] and costing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives. That era is over. President [of the United States Donald] Trump has been very clear he intends to bring this war to an end, that all sides need to be bought into that," he told Fox News.

He expressed bewilderment at Kiev’s "bizarre pushback and escalation of rhetoric" over The US proposal to use Ukrainian mineral resources in exchange for the US assistance, which the US sees "as an absolute opportunity, and that's to have the United States invest in Ukrainian infrastructure, to have them grow both their minerals, their natural resources, their oil and gas."

Back in early February, US President Donald Trump said that Washington was interested in gaining access to Ukraine’s rare earth metals. Zelensky expressed his readiness to make a deal and suggested that the outcome of negotiations on this issue could be put on record at the Munich conference on February 14-16.

However, on February 14 in Munich, Kiev rejected the US administration's plan to assist Ukraine in exchange for giving Washington the right to half of Ukrainian rare earths. Zelensky at the same time noted that there were no security guarantees in the proposed agreement. Kiev said that it was working on a counterproposal.

On February 16, Waltz, speaking in an interview with Fox News, strongly advised Zelensky to change his mind and sign an agreement with the US on are minerals agreement, as Americans "deserve to have some kind of payback for the billions they have invested in this war.".