The Kremlin said Friday that President Vladimir Putin is open to a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump after he is sworn in to office on Jan. 20.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the comment in response to a question about Trump’s remarks Thursday that a meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine with Putin was being set up.

“President Putin has repeatedly stated his openness to contacts with international leaders, including the U.S. president, including Donald Trump,” Peskov said. He added that “no conditions are required” for the meeting to happen.

“What is required is a mutual desire and political will to dialogue and to solve existing problems through dialogue,” Peskov said. “We see that Mr. Trump is declaring his readiness to solve problems through dialogue. We welcome that.”

The Kremlin did not confirm that a meeting is being scheduled, as Trump said Thursday.

“President Putin has repeatedly stated his openness to contacts with international leaders, including the U.S. president, including Donald Trump,” Peskov said. He added that “no conditions are required” for the meeting to happen.

“What is required is a mutual desire and political will to dialogue and to solve existing problems through dialogue,” Peskov said. “We see that Mr. Trump is declaring his readiness to solve problems through dialogue. We welcome that.”

The Kremlin did not confirm that a meeting is being scheduled, as Trump said Thursday night.

“He wants to meet, and we’re setting it up,” Trump said during a gathering with Republican governors at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “President Putin wants to meet – he’s said that even publicly – and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess,” Trump said.

Putin has said he is ready to talk with Trump but voiced a hard-line stance on the potential peace negotiations on Ukraine. He has doubled down on Russia’s claim to occupied eastern Ukrainian territories and said that Moscow does not want a long-term ceasefire agreement but a “durable peace secured with guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens.”

During his annual phone-in with journalists in Moscow at the end of last year, Putin claimed he had not spoken to Trump in more than four years but stressed that he was “ready” to discuss the war with the incoming U.S. leader “at any time.”

President Joe Biden held a summit with Putin in June 2021 in Geneva. The three-hour meeting consisted largely of the two sides airing complaints about each other but was described as a success.

U.S.-Russian relations, already considered at a post-Cold War low at that time, have since plummeted further with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

(c) 2025, The Washington Post · Mary Ilyushina