Russia wants to avoid conflict with Ukraine and the West, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, but needs an “immediate” response from the US and its allies to its demands for security guarantees.

Ukraine is at the centre of soaring East-West tensions after the US and Kyiv accused Russia of weighing a new attack on its southern neighbour, an allegation Moscow denies.

“This is not our (preferred) choice, we do not want this,” Putin said at his annual news conference when asked about the possibility of conflict with Ukraine.
He said Russia had received a generally positive initial response to security proposals it handed to the US this month designed to defuse the current crisis and that he was hopeful about the prospect for negotiations, which he said would start early next year in Geneva.

But in a separate reply, Putin grew more heated when recalling how Nato had “brazenly tricked” Russia with successive waves of expansion since the Cold War, and said Moscow needed an answer urgently.

“You must give us guarantees, and immediately — now,” he said.
Russia rejects Ukrainian and US accusations that it may be preparing an invasion of Ukraine as early as next month by tens of thousands of Russian troops deployed within reach of the border of the fellow former Soviet republic.

It says it needs pledges from the West — including a promise not to conduct Nato military activity in Eastern Europe — because its security is threatened by Ukraine’s growing ties with the western alliance as well as the possibility of Nato missiles being deployed against it on Ukrainian territory.

“We just directly posed the question that there should be no further Nato movement to the east. The ball is in their court, they should answer us with something,” Putin said.
Tensions over Ukraine have pushed East-West relations to their lowest point in the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US, EU and G7 have all warned Putin he will face “massive consequences” including tough economic sanctions.

The topic surfaced repeatedly at Putin’s marathon question-and-answer session, with the Russian leader seated alone in front of an audience of masked reporters on a giant stage. While looking forward to the upcoming talks with Washington, Putin was damning in his criticism of Ukraine.

He accused it of breaking its commitments under a 2015 deal meant to halt fighting in Ukraine’s Donbass area between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces, and refusing to talk to representatives of 2 breakaway regions.