WASHINGTON 

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he expects to sign an elusive deal over Ukraine's rare earth mineral reserves "very shortly" amid ongoing negotiations with Kyiv.

"One of the things we are doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths with Ukraine, which they have tremendous value in rare earth. And we appreciate that," he said during a ceremony at the White House.

The deal was supposed to be signed when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House on Feb. 28, but the meeting fell apart after a highly rare feud developed, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance berating the Ukrainian leader and accusing him of being ungrateful for years of American support.

Trump said he would love to see Russia's war against Ukraine "come to an end," describing ongoing negotiations as progressing "pretty well" after he held separate phone calls with Zelenskyy on Wednesday and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

"Hopefully we could save thousands of people a week from dying. That's what it's all about. They're dying so unnecessarily. And I believe we'll get it done. We'll see what happens, but I believe we'll get it done," he said.

During his call with Trump on Wednesday, Zelenskyy agreed to a limited ceasefire with Russia that would temporarily halt all attacks on "energy" targets.

A joint statement from National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio released after the call concluded listed only "energy" as being covered by the partial ceasefire, and it is unclear if the truce covers the same types of targets as the ones Putin agreed to on Tuesday, which was earlier described as prohibiting attacks "on all energy and infrastructure.