WASHINGTON - US President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to meet him and that such a meeting was being set up.

"He wants to meet. And we're setting it up," Trump said of the Russian leader before a meeting with Republican governors at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. He did not offer a timeline for the meeting.

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"President Putin wants to meet. He's said that even publicly, and we have to get that war over with. That's a bloody mess," said the president-elect, referring to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.