TEHRAN, February 22 (MNA) – US President Donald Trump called Friday for his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin to "get together" to end the Ukraine conflict."I think that President Putin and President Zelenskyy are going to have to get together.

Because you know what? We want to stop killing millions of people," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump has been pushing for a deal to end the war soon and has held separate calls with both leaders.

His top officials recently met their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia in talks that did not include Ukraine.

Trump's new call follows comments by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier Friday, who said a potential meeting between Trump and Putin would "largely depend on whether we can make progress on ending the war in Ukraine." In an interview published on social media, Rubio said he told Russian officials in Saudi Arabia earlier that there would be no meeting until "we know what the meeting is going to be about." According to the official, Trump wants to know if Russia is serious about ending the war in Ukraine, which was sparked by Moscow's full-scale invasion three years ago.

"The only way is to test them, to basically engage them and say, 'Okay, are you serious about ending the war? And if so, what are your demands? Are your public demands and your private demands different?'" Rubio said.

MNA/