President Trump said Thursday that he wants to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon and get that war ended,” Mr. Trump said in remarks given virtually to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“And that’s not from the standpoint of the economy or anything else,” he said. “It’s from the standpoint of millions of lives are being wasted.”

He called the war devastation “a carnage and we really have to stop that war.”

Prior to the election, Mr. Trump repeatedly said he could end the war on his first day in office and predicted he would talk with the Russian leader “very quickly,” but never offered up how he would get the two sides to stop fighting. He said then that Mr. Putin had reached out to him about a meeting.

The Biden administration had virtually no diplomatic or leader-level contacts with the Kremlin after Mr. Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Mr. Putin earlier this week congratulated Mr. Trump on his return to power but did not indicate a direct meeting had been set up.

“We hear [Mr. Trump’s] statement about the need to do everything possible to prevent World War III. We certainly welcome this attitude and congratulate the president-elect of the United States of America on his assumption of office,” Mr. Putin told reporters in Moscow.

Mr. Trump also said he hopes China can help end the Russia-Ukraine war.

“They have a great deal of power over that situation,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ll work with them.”

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