Ukraine conflict wouldn’t have happened if Trump had been President in 2022, says Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said that the war in Ukraine would not have happened if Donald Trump had been in White House in 2022, signalling a potential thaw in relations.

US President Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which took place during Biden’s term, would not have happened if he were the President.

"I would like to remind you, that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague, the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities," Putin said after his nearly three-hour summit with Trump in Alaska.

“And I said it quite directly back then, that it was a big mistake. Today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there will be no war -- and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be, so I can confirm that,” Putin said, adding that overall he and President Trump have built a very good business-like and trustworthy relationship.

“I have every reason to believe that by moving along this path, we can reach - and the sooner, the better - the end of the conflict in Ukraine,” Putin stated.

The highly anticipated summit between the two leaders yielded no agreement to resolve or pause Moscow's war in Ukraine, despite both leaders describing the talks in Alaska as productive.

During a brief appearance before the media following the nearly three-hour talks, the two leaders said they had made progress on unspecified issues.

"There were many, many points that we agreed on. I would say a couple of big ones that we haven't quite got there, but we've made some headway," Trump said

"There's no deal until there's a deal," he added.

For Putin, the meeting was already a win -- the first with a US president since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine -- regardless of any concrete results. He could present it as proof that Western efforts to isolate Russia have unraveled and that Moscow is reclaiming its diplomatic stature.

Trump, for his part, is counting on a truce in the 3½-year-old conflict started by Putin to bring both peace to the region and bolster his reputation as a global peacemaker worthy of Nobel recognition.