MOSCOW, July 4, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he took seriously US presidential candidate Donald Trump's comments that he could bring about a quick end to the fighting in Ukraine.

Trump had said during a debate with President Joe Biden last week that if elected, he would have the conflict "settled" before he took office in January 2025.

"The fact that Mr. Trump as a presidential candidate is saying that he is ready and wants to stop the war in Ukraine, we take that quite seriously," Putin said at a press conference in Astana.

Russia usually refers to its military offensive on Ukraine as a "special military operation."

Putin added that he was "not familiar" with Trump's specific proposals to end the fighting, now in its third year.

"That, of course, is the key question," Putin said.

"But I have no doubt that he says it sincerely, and we support it," he added.

Putin has always claimed to be open to talks on ending the conflict, though last month demanded Ukraine effectively capitulate as a precondition of a ceasefire.

The Kremlin leader had called for Ukraine to pull its troops out of the south and east of the country, vacating territory currently held by its forces, if it wanted Russia's offensive to end.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, which he says Russia would use to regroup and rearm.

Kyiv wants Russian forces out of the country entirely, including the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014, as part of any settlement, and for Russia to pay compensation for damage and destruction caused by the conflict.

Russian troops have made modest advances on the battlefield this year after a Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2023 was largely unsuccessful.