Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat has praised Donald Trump for talking about Russia’s concerns over Ukraine possibly joining Nato.

Kyiv has long wanted to be a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation so it would be protected against Russia’s expansionist ambitions.

But Moscow has repeatedly claimed it would mean Ukraine becoming too close to the West, while Russian president Vladimir Putin has said Kyiv’s possible Nato membership was one of the reasons he started his “special military operation” nearly three years ago.

He has also made the complete rejection of Ukraine’s bid to join Nato one of his terms to end the war.

Then, last month, the new US president said he sympathised with Russia’s position.

He said: “A big part of the problem is, Russia – for many, many years, long before Putin – said, ‘You could never have Nato involved with Ukraine.’ Now, they’ve said that. That’s been, like, written in stone.

“And somewhere along the line [Joe] Biden said, ‘No. They should be able to join Nato.’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that.”

On Wednesday, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov finally welcomed the comments.

According to Reuters, he said: “Suddenly, for the first time, President Trump, in one of his first speeches, criticising the position of the administration of Biden on the Ukrainian crisis, bluntly said that one of the main mistakes was drawing Ukraine into Nato.

“For the first time the problem of Nato was identified as something that the United States is ready to discuss seriously.”

It’s no surprise Russia was on board with Trump’s comments, considering Putin  made a similar claim in December telling reporters: “I know that the current President Biden spoke about this, it is no secret, back in 2021.

“He proposed exactly this to me – to delay Ukraine’s admission to Nato for 10-15 years, because it is not ready yet.”

But, the Russian president did not say Biden then went back on the deal.

Instead, he added: “For us, it makes no difference – today, tomorrow or in 10 years’ time.”

Trump has vowed to end the war in Ukraine, but has not made it clear how he intends to do so.

That has sparked fears he will push Kyiv to cede occupied territories to Putin, who currently has troops on a fifth of Ukraine’s entire land mass.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy told broadcaster Piers Morgan on Tuesday that he was now ready to negotiate the end of the war with Putin if that is the only way to bring peace to his beleaguered country.