MOSCOW, Jan 24, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that the 2022 "crisis in Ukraine" -- a reference to Moscow's full-scale military offensive -- might have been averted had Donald Trump been US president at the time.

"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 told a state TV reporter.