"Gotta make a deal," Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump said he would talk to Putin and Zelenskiy about bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, saying he is troubled by images of carnage from the conflict.
"It's got to stop," Trump said.
Trump did not give a direct answer when asked whether he believed Ukraine should cede territory to Russia as part of a negotiated settlement to end the war.
Trump said much of the territory in dispute has been reduced to rubble and that it would take a century to recover.
"I mean, there are cities that there's not a building standing, it's a demolition site," he said.
He also said he had been shown pictures of body-strewn battlefields that reminded him of some of the grisly photographs from the 1861-1865 American Civil War.
Trump has said he would like to bring a quick end to the war but has been cagey on the details. He told Time magazine in an interview published last week that he had a "very good plan" to help but that if he reveals it now "it becomes almost a worthless plan."
