By Guy Birchall

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking during his marathon annual news conference on Dec. 19, said he supports U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

“President Trump is making serious efforts to bring this conflict to an end. As I’ve said many times, I believe he is doing this with complete sincerity,” Putin said, according to state news agency TASS.

“Furthermore, at the meeting with President Trump in Anchorage, we coordinated and virtually agreed to President Trump’s proposals. Therefore, to say that we are rejecting something is absolutely incorrect and has no basis whatsoever.”

Putin’s 4 1/2-hour session was broadcast live on Russian TV channels and livestreamed on websites. The broadcast takes the format of a speech followed by a question-and-answer session, with journalists and members of the public allowed to quiz the Russian leader.

The Russian leader said that at the Russo-American preliminary meetings in Moscow, proposals were made and Russia was asked to make compromises.

“When I arrived in Anchorage, I said that these would not be easy decisions for us, but we agreed to the compromises being proposed,” Putin said, referring to his August meeting with Trump in Alaska.

He added that, in his view, the “ball is entirely in the court of our Western opponents,” specifically citing the leaders of Ukraine and the European nations supporting Kyiv.

“We are ready for both negotiations and a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” he said.

The Russian leader said Russia sees certain signals from Kyiv that they are ready to engage in dialogue.

Putin also said Russia was forced to use its military in Ukraine to end a war that was started by Kyiv, a charge that has been repeatedly denied by Kyiv.

“For our part, we refrained for a long time from recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the then-unrecognized republics, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic,” Putin said. “And after we were deceived and the Minsk agreements were not implemented, we were forced to use armed forces to put an end to the war that had been started by the Kyiv regime with the support of Western countries.”

People mourn at the graves of Ukrainian servicemen at the Lychakiv cemetery on the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in Lviv on Dec. 6, 2025. Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP via Getty Images

He also suggested he would be prepared to halt strikes on Ukraine if Kyiv decided to hold an election. Ukraine’s last presidential election was in 2019. He also said Ukrainians living in Russia should be allowed to take part.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s mandate expired last year, but Ukraine is constitutionally prevented from holding new elections during martial law.

Putin criticized NATO, saying that the movement of the alliance’s military infrastructure toward Russia’s borders “raises, and has raised, and continues to raise, our legitimate concern.”

Putin also labeled the ongoing attempt by the European Union to use frozen Russian assets as “robbery” and said it could damage trust in the eurozone.

Those comments followed a decision by the EU to borrow money for a 90 billion euro ($105 billion) loan to Ukraine to fund the country’s defenses over the next two years, rather than use frozen Russian assets.

Despite shelving the plan to fund Kyiv with Moscow’s confiscated assets for now, member states did give consent for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, to keep working on a so-called reparations loan based on those immobilized assets.

Reuters contributed to this report.