PARIS, France (AFP) —Donald Trump said solving the Ukraine crisis would be his top priority once he assumes office next month, describing the Middle East as a “less difficult situation.”

“I think we have to solve the Ukraine problem with Russia,” the United States president-elect told French magazine Paris Match in an interview recorded on Saturday and released on Wednesday.

“Both those countries are losing numbers that nobody can believe. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are being killed,” Trump said, replying to a question about his top priority on the international stage.

“And the Middle East is of course a big priority. But I think that the Middle East is a less difficult situation than Ukraine with Russia,” Trump said.

“But those are the two situations that we have to solve and we have to solve them quickly. A lot of people are dying.”

Trump flew to Paris for the Saturday reopening of Notre Dame cathedral following a devastating fire in 2019. He met with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky during his visit to France, his first international trip since his re-election.

“We had a good meeting with President Zelensky,” Trump said.

On Tuesday, Zelensky said he was grateful for Trump’s “strong resolve” to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump once boasted he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours.

On Sunday he wrote on his Truth Social platform that “there should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin.”

He also reiterated his call for Washington not to intervene in Syria where longtime president Bashar al-Assad was toppled by rebels in a lightning offensive at the weekend.

“Syria will have to take care of itself,” Trump said in the interview. “We are not involved in Syria.”

Attack kills 6

Meanwhile, rescuers were working Wednesday to find people under the rubble of a building destroyed in a Russian attack that killed six people the day before, Ukrainian officials said.

The attack that destroyed a medical clinic and an office building in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday was the latest in an intensifying series of strikes on southern Ukraine, reinforcing fears of a new Russian offensive in the area.

“The death toll has risen to six people,” the interior ministry said on social media.

“As many as five people may be trapped under the rubble. Police, rescuers, volunteers and relevant city services continue to work at the scene,” it added.

Another 22 people were wounded in the attack, including a five-year-old girl, according to the ministry, which published a photo of an ambulance next to a destroyed building.

Zaporizhzhia is one of the four Ukrainian regions Moscow claimed to have annexed in 2022, without fully controlling it.