Vladimir Putin says Ukraine war could have been avoided if Donald Trump was not robbed of election in 2020

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said the war in Ukraine could have been avoided had his American counterpart Donald Trump not been “robbed of the election” in 2020.

Describing his decision on Russia invading Ukraine in February 2022 as a “crisis”, Putin told state media that the conflict could not have happened under a Trump presidency.

“I cannot but agree with him that if he had been president, if his victory had not been stolen from him in 2020, then perhaps there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022,” Putin was quoted by The Daily Mail as saying.

Trump has claimed that the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, a Democrat, was “stolen” from him.

Putin praised Trump and said he was not only a “smart person, but also a pragmatic person”.

He said Russia was ready to negotiate a deal to end the Ukraine war with the US’s help.

“I have a hard time imagining there will be decisions taken that are detrimental to the American economy. As for the issue of negotiations, we have always said, and I want to emphasise this once again, that we are ready for these negotiations on Ukrainian issues,” he said.

However, Putin’s remarks were in sharp contrast with the statement made by the Russian Foreign Ministry a few hours ago, which denounced the ongoing supply of Western arms to Ukrainian forces, and described Kyiv as an “illegitimate regime”.

“Despite the increasingly loud talk about the need for peace talks, no practical actions indicating a real readiness for them on the part of Kyiv and the West are objectively observed. The issue of the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government is not being resolved,” the ministry said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office hit back, saying that there could be no peace talks between Putin and Trump without the participation of European representatives.

During his campaign and when Biden was president, Trump claimed that he would strike a deal to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours if he was at the helm.

However, ever since Trump assumed office on Monday, there seems to be no end to the war, with observers expecting the Republican leader to come down hard on both Russia and Ukraine into signing a peace deal.

Trump had earlier warned that he would impose sanctions on Russia and intensify the supply of arms to Ukraine if Moscow did not come to the negotiating table.