President Donald Trump said Thursday that talks to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine are “very well advanced" and he expressed confidence that Russian leader Vladimir Putin won't press to restart the war if a truce can be reached. Trump made the comments at the start of a White House meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer where the Starmer was expected to make his case to the Republican president that American leadership would be critical to maintain the peace in Ukraine should the three-year war end. “I think he’ll keep his word," Trump said of Putin. “I’ve spoken to him, I’ve known him for a long time now, we had to go through the Russian hoax together.” The mention of “Russia hoax” is a reference to the FBI and Justice Department special counsel investigation that examined whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign illegally coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of the U.S. election. Special counsel Robert Mueller found that although the Trump campaign welcomed Russia’s help in the form of the release of hacked emails stolen from Democrats, there was insufficient evidence to prove that the campaign had colluded with Moscow. Starmer's trip, coming a few days after French President Emmanuel Macron's own visit to Trump, reflects the mounting concern felt by much of Europe that Trump's aggressive push to find an end to the war signals his willingness to concede too much to Putin. At a White House meeting Friday, Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are expected to sign off on a contentious agreement that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine's critical minerals, which are used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries. Zelenskyy had chafed at a deal without specific security guarantees from Washington. Trump told reporters he wants "to work" with Zelenskyy but was noncommittal about any coming American security guarantees. "We want to work with him and we will work with him. I think the president and I actually have had a very good relationship. It maybe got a little bit testy because we wanted to have a little bit of what the European nations had," Trump said.