Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that he and Donald Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the U.S. president has highlighted in the first five days of his new administration.

Putin said, however, that there could be no serious peace talks with Ukraine unless the West leaned on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to cancel a 2022 decree that bars him from negotiating with the Russian leader.

Putin described Trump, who this week threatened to hit Russia with new sanctions and tariffs if it did not negotiate an end to the war, as smart and pragmatic. He said he did not expect the U.S. president to make decisions on sanctions that would rebound on the U.S. economy.

"Therefore, most likely, it would be better for us to meet, based on the realities of today, to talk calmly on all those areas that are of interest to both the United States and Russia. We are ready," he said, while adding that this depended on the choices of the U.S. side.

It was the strongest indication yet from the Kremlin that it is keen for an early summit with Trump after three years of virtually no high-level contact with Western leaders because of the war in Ukraine.

Trump, who was sworn in for a second, non-consecutive term on Monday, has also said that he wants to meet Putin and that he seeks an early end to the conflict. He said this week that the war was "ridiculous" and that it was "destroying" Russia's economy.

Putin said he had always had "pragmatic and trusting" relations with Trump. He also voiced support for Trump's false claim that he, not Joe Biden, was the real winner of the 2020 U.S. election.

"I can't help agreeing with him that if he had been president, if his victory had not been stolen in 2020, then perhaps there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022," the Kremlin leader said. In February that year Putin launched what he called his "special military operation" in Ukraine.

He noted Trump's comments that he was ready to work together, saying: "We are always open to this."