“In our dialogue with the United States and its allies we will insist on practical agreements that will rule out any further eastward expansion of Nato as well as deploying weaponry near our territory that might threaten us,” Mr Putin said on Wednesday.

He insisted that Russia needs “legal security guarantees” rather than verbal assurances, arguing that Nato had made promises to Russia before “and did the opposite.”

Kremlin advisor Fyodor Lukyanov last month suggested Russia would invade Ukraine, in a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Crimea, if such conditions were not met.

The foreign minister also raised concern about a build-up of Ukrainian government troops near the front line with Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

Maria Zakharova, the ministry’s spokeswoman, estimated the number of government troops in the area at 125,000.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, in his annual address to parliament on Wednesday said the time had come to address the Kremlin directly over a conflict in the east of the country that has been simmering since 2014.

“For the past eight years we have been scared to admit to ourselves that we will not be able to stop the war without direct talks with Russia – along with a capable Ukrainian army.”