President Putin, in a bravura performance before the world’s media at the end of the Nato summit, warned President Bush and other alliance leaders that their plan to expand eastwards to Ukraine and Georgia “didn’t contribute to trust and predictability in our relations”.

The Russian President, who hands over to Dmitri Medvedev on May 7, said that the world’s problems could not be solved without Russia and he appealed for the West to give due consideration to his country’s security concerns. “So let’s be friends, guys, let’s be frank and open,” he said through an interpreter.

Expansion of the alliance to Russia’s borders “would be taken in Russia as a direct threat to the security of our country”. Nato statements that this was not directed against Russia were not enough, he said.

Mr Putin, who strode into the huge press conference centre inside Ceausescu’s palace in Bucharest to a round of applause from many of the waiting journalists, declared that his country’s national security could not be built on promises from Nato. “We’ve heard promises previously on the subject of expansion, but for us there’s no clarity about Nato’s future intentions.”

He also rejected the idea that any country joining Nato would automatically become democratic. Mr Putin had earlier taken his place at the same table as all the Nato leaders at a meeting of the Nato-Russia Council, although his presence has been felt throughout the three-day summit.

Despite the differences, Mr Putin insisted that he had had a constructive and helpful session with his alliance partners. He was aware that there was often a “religious tremor” in the West before he made one of his speeches. But his discussions with Nato had not involved “a ping-pong match of mutual blame”.

Some people may choose to play around in “the murky waters of another Cold War” but it was in no one’s interest to return to the past. “There are no ideological dividing lines in Europe now,” he said. He added that he was looking forward to further dialogue with Mr Bush on missile defence and other issues at this weekend’s bilateral summit in the Black Sea port of Sochi.

Asked if he felt that the world was going to miss him once he had stepped down, Mr Putin said that he was looking forward to handing over the burden of his official duties.

He said that there was “nothing to be afraid about” and insisted that after his long stint as President he would experience “a long-awaited freedom”.

During his tenure of office, he said, Russia had enjoyed a “resurrection” and had become an independent state with “a strong foreign posture”.

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