Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was ready for talks with US counterpart Donald Trump on Ukraine, praising him as a "smart" leader who might have prevented the conflict from starting in 2022.
Kyiv reacted quickly, warning against being excluded from negotiations. The Russian leader did not say when talks would take place, and the Kremlin said earlier it was still waiting for "signals" from Washington, despite Trump announcing Thursday he was willing to meet Putin "immediately".
"We have always said, and I want to emphasise this once again, that we are ready for these negotiations on Ukrainian issues," Putin told a reporter from Russian state TV.
Praising Trump as a "smart" and "pragmatic" man, Putin also repeated the Republican's unfounded claim that he won the US presidential election against Joe Biden in 2020.
"I cannot but agree with him that if he had been president -- if his victory hadn't been stolen in 2020 -- then maybe there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that emerged in 2022," Putin said.
The nearly three-year Ukraine conflict has plunged relations between the two nuclear powers to their lowest levels since the Cold War.
Trump, who was inaugurated on Monday, has called the conflict "ridiculous" and threatened Russia with tougher economic sanctions if it does not agree to stop its offensive.
"If they don't settle this war soon, like almost immediately, I'm going to put massive tariffs on Russia, and massive taxes, and also big sanctions," the Republican said during a Fox News interview on Thursday.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on the same day, Trump said he would ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to lower oil prices, claiming: "If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately."
Putin pushed back at Trump's claim that lower oil prices might expedite the end of the conflict.
"I have a hard time imagining there will be decisions taken that are detrimental to the American economy," Putin said Friday.
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