Putin sees ‘positive’ US reaction

President Vladimir Putin said that Washington's willingness to discuss Russia's security proposals to curb Nato's eastward expansion was "positive", as fears mount in the West over a major military escalation in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has grown increasingly insistent that the West and Nato are encroaching dangerously close to Russia's borders. Moscow presented the West with sweeping security demands last week, saying Nato must not admit new members and seeking to bar the United States from establishing new bases in former Soviet republics.

Washington responded that it is willing to discuss the security proposals -- within weeks according to a US official -- and Putin said Thursday that Washington is ready for talks at the start of next year in Geneva.

"The start of negotiations announced (for) January will allow us to move forward," Putin said at his annual end-of-year press conference, adding that representatives from both sides have been appointed.

"I hope that this is the first positive reaction."

A senior US official said Washington was "ready to engage in diplomacy as soon as early January", both bilaterally and through "multiple channels".

Putin's conciliatory tone Thursday came after tensions peaked this week when he vowed that Russia would take "appropriate retaliatory" military steps in response to what he called the West's "aggressive stance". He also announced a new arsenal of hypersonic missiles that he has previously described as "invincible" were nearing combat readiness.

Tensions have been building since mid-November when Washington sounded the alarm over a massive Russian troop build-up on Ukraine's border and claimed that Putin is planning an invasion.

The West has long accused the Kremlin of providing direct military support to pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, who seized two regions shortly after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.

The Russia denies the claims and Putin has suggested that the conflict, which has claimed over 13,000 lives, is genocidal.