US President Donald Trump was asked during a press briefing in the White House Oval Office on Thursday about his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, and whether he would be willing to give Putin access to rare earth minerals to encourage him to stop the war in Ukraine.

"We’re going to see what happens with our meeting. We have a big meeting. It’s going to be, I think, very important for Russia, and it’s going to be very important for us," Trump said. He later added that the earth minerals are “very unimportant” compared to “trying to save lives.”

Trump reiterated that he was meeting with Putin to save the lives of thousands of soldiers a week.

Speaking about Friday’s meeting, the US president said, “I think it's going to be a good meeting.”

"But the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we're having. We're going to have a meeting with President Putin, [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, myself and maybe we'll bring some of the European leaders, maybe not," he added.

Also, Trump told reporters that he thinks Putin and Zelenskyy “will make peace.”