MOSCOW, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Russia wants to avoid conflict with Ukraine and the West, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, but needs an "immediate" response from the United States and its allies to its demands for security guarantees.
Ukraine is at the centre of soaring East-West tensions after the United States and Kyiv accused Russia of weighing a new attack on its southern neighbour, an allegation Moscow denies.
Putin was plied with questions about the risk of conflict with Ukraine during his marathon annual news conference, which lasted over four hours.
"This is not our (preferred) choice, we do not want this," he told reporters.
Tensions over Ukraine have pushed Moscow's relations with the West to their lowest point since the collapse of the Soviet Union some 30 years ago.
The United States, the European Union and the Group of Seven have all warned Putin he will face "massive consequences" including tough economic sanctions in the event of any new Russian aggression.
Putin said Russia had received a generally positive initial response to security proposals it handed to the United States this month designed to defuse the 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.
A Biden administration official in a call with reporters said Washington has taken note of the concerns that Moscow has raised and was ready to engage with Russia as soon as early January but a specific date and location were yet to be set.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the administration official repeatedly said the United States would not negotiate publicly and that it would provide its full response to Russian proposals in January.
"I expect we will have our substantive response in those (January) talks.... clearly there are some things that have been proposed that we’ll never agree to. I think the Russians probably know that on some level. I think there are other areas where we may be able to explore what's possible," the official said.
Russia rejects Ukrainian and U.S. 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 country which like Russia is a 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.
