Vladimir Putin has said he will consider a military response if Russia feels threatened by Nato, which is a sign that he is not ready to escalate tensions over a potential invasion of Ukraine.
Putin, who has demanded security guarantees from Nato, told his top military commanders that the west was to blame for the rising tensions. It came against a Russian build up of tanks and artillery for what could be an invasion force within a few weeks.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian president has railed against Nato enlargement and accused the west of turning Ukraine against Russia. In 2014 after a revolution in Ukraine installed a pro-western government, Moscow annexed Crimea and sparked a conflict in east Ukraine that has left more than 14,000 dead. It has bristled at the growing military cooperation between Ukraine and Nato.
If our western counterparts continue a clearly aggressive line, we will take proportionate military-technical countermeasures and respond firmly to unfriendly steps, he said. Putin did not specifically refer to the possibility of an offensive operation in Ukraine and Russian diplomats suggested that Russia's response could employ other measures such as moving intermediate-range missiles within striking distance of European targets. Moscow claims that it would be a punishment for the United States unilateral withdrawal from a missile treaty in 2018.
Parts of Putin's speech on Tuesday appeared to give Russia a justification to launch a new military campaign in Ukraine, something it could be ready for as soon as next month.
He said that the United States is at our doorstep and US support for Kyiv is what the United States is doing in Ukraine. They should understand that we have nowhere else to retreat to. They are urging and arming extremists from a neighbouring country in Russia. For instance, in Crimea. Putin didn't give any evidence for his claims. Sergei Shoigu, Russia's defence minister, claimed an American private military company had acquired chemical weapons and was planning to launch a provocation in the east Ukrainian cities of Avdeevka and Krasny Liman. Russia's military previously made similar claims in Syria, although the predicted attacks often did not take place.
Putin repeated demands that the west make legal guarantees to ensure Russia's security, but said he would have difficulty trusting the US to abide by a treaty.
Putin told military commanders that we need long-term legally binding guarantees. You and I know that legal guarantees can't be trusted because the United States just withdraws from all international agreements it loses interest in for one reason or another, giving no explanations whatsoever. Russia put forward a highly contentious list of security guarantees it wants the west to agree to in order to lower tensions in Europe and defuse the crisis in Ukraine, including many elements that have already been ruled out by the EU last week.
The demands include a ban on Ukraine entering Nato and a limit on the deployment of troops and weapons to Nato's eastern flank, in effect returning Nato forces to where they were stationed in 1997, before an eastward expansion.