President Trump said Tuesday that he is “much more confident” that a deal between Russia and Ukraine will be made after officials from the U.S. and Russia met to discuss ending the war.

Speaking from his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, the president said the talks were “very good.”

“Russia wants to do something, they want to stop the savage barbarianism,” he said, calling the deaths of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers “ridiculous.”

Representatives from Russia met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio Tuesday in Saudi Arabia. Agreements were made to start working toward an end to the war.

Ukraine was not present for the conversations.

Mr. Rubio told The Associated Press that the two sides agreed to a high-level team to work on Ukraine peace talks, restore staffing at embassies in Moscow and Washington and work toward closer relations and economic cooperation.

Mr. Trump said the war wouldn’t have started three years ago if he were president.

When asked if he would consider removing all American troops from Europe as part of a peace deal, the president said no one has asked him to do that, but he wouldn’t want to.

He said he would be open to stationing European peace-keeping troops in Ukraine, saying “he’s all for it.”

When asked about Ukrainians who may be disappointed that their country wasn’t invited to the discussions in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump said he’s been “disappointed in what’s happened.”

“I’m very disappointed. I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat — well they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that,” he said. “This could’ve been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could’ve settled this years ago, I think without the loss of land, very little land, without the loss of any lives and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides.”

He said a deal should’ve been made “a long time ago.”

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.