Putin backs Trump's claim that the Ukraine war would not have happened if he'd won 2020 election

"I can confirm that," Putin said at the tail-end of a press conferece that took place Friday evening after the pair met for a summit at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. 

Earlier in his address, Putin lamented that bilateral relations between the U.S. and Russia, prior to Trump, had "fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War," and highlighted the fact that there have been no summits between the U.S. and Russia over the last four years.

"That's not benefiting our counties and the world as a whole," Putin said, adding that it was "apparent that sooner or later [U.S. and Russia] had to amend the situation to move on from the confrontation to dialogue."

Meanwhile, Putin praised Trump for "his strive to get to the crux of the matter and to understand this history," referring to the backstory surrounding the war. He called the commitment "precious." 

"Overall, me and President Trump have built a very good business-like and trustworthy contact, and have every reason to believe that moving down this path we can come to the end of the conflict in Ukraine," Putin said Friday. 

The infamous meeting saw Zelenskyy publicly argue back-and-forth with Trump and other top leaders in the administration, as President Trump criticized the Ukrainian president for his approach to ending the war.

"Biden could've stopped it, Zelenskyy could've stopped it, and Putin should've never started it," Trump said in April about the war in Ukraine.