Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron if there is mutual political will, RIA news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying in remarks published.
"If there is mutual political will, then it can only be viewed positively,” Peskov said on Sunday, according to RIA.
Macron said this week he believed Europe should reach back out to Putin over ending the war in Ukraine.
"I believe that it's in our interest as Europeans and Ukrainians to find the right framework to re-engage this discussion" in the coming weeks, the French president said.
"Either a robust and lasting peace is reached, with the required (security) guarantees," Macron told reporters in Brussels, "or we will need in the weeks ahead to find ways for Europeans to re-engage in a fulsome dialogue with Russia, and in complete transparency."
Most EU countries, except Hungary and Slovakia, have severed communication with Putin since the Ukraine war.
Macron held a two-hour phone call with Putin in July, the first in three years, in which he called for a ceasefire in Ukraine, but the conversation had little discernible impact on the war.
The bloc had an interest in finding the right framework to re-engage in talks with Russia, Macron said, or else its leaders risked being left talking amongst themselves and "with negotiators who alone will talk to the Russians."
European Union leaders agreed on Friday to give Ukraine a loan of $105 billion to plug looming budget shortfalls as the conflict approaches the end of its fourth year.
But they failed to agree on using frozen Russian assets to come up with the funds.
