THE FATBOY SHOW : Putin claims 'Ukraine crisis' may have been averted if Trump was president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Friday that "the crisis in Ukraine" might have been prevented if Donald Trump was in power at the time, saying he was ready to talk with the new US president about the conflict.

Trump has long claimed that the war in Ukraine would not have happened under his watch, but Friday marked the first time Putin suggested the same thing – while also repeating Trump's false claim that the 2020 US election was "stolen."

"I can't help but agree with (Trump) that if his victory had not been stolen in 2020, then maybe there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022," Putin told a Russian TV channel, presumably referring to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine which he himself had ordered in February 2022.