Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said the 2022 invasion of Ukraine that resulted in a full-blown war might not have happened had Donald Trump been U.S. president at the time.

President Trump has said at various times that the war would not have broken out had he been in office in 2022, including in a Wednesday post on Truth Social. On Friday, Putin addressed such remarks in an interview with Rossiya TV correspondent Pavel Zarubin.

“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.

This is a breaking story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024.

Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images