President Vladimir Putin said yesterday Russia would stand up for itself but not at the cost of confrontation with the outside world, a conciliatory note after months of tough rhetoric over the crisis in Ukraine.

Putin was speaking to Russian ministers and MPs in Crimea, the Ukrainian region annexed by Russian this year – a stage that led many people to anticipate a major announcement about Ukraine.

But the tone of Putin’s comments was low-key and he avoided the kind of barbs that he has previously directed at Western countries during the crisis, which has dragged East-West relations to their lowest ebb since the Cold War.

“We must calmly, with dignity and effectively, build up our country, not fence it off from the outside world,” Putin said. “We need to consolidate and mobilise but not for war or any kind of confrontation... for hard work in the name of Russia.”

He also said Russia would do everything in its power to end the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible and stop the bloodshed there.

Explaining his thoughts yesterday about Russia’s foreign policy doctrine, he said it should be peace-loving.

“All our partners in the world should understand that Russia, like any other large, powerful sovereign state, has various ways and means of ensuring its national interests, and these include armed forces,” he said.

“But this is not a panacea and we do not intend, like some people, to dash around the world with a razor blade and wave that blade around. But everyone should understand that we also have such things in our arsenal.”

Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asked about Putin’s remarks, said if they were a sincere attempt to defuse the standoff, they would be welcome. But he said at a news conference in Norway that the Russian leader had sounded dovish in the past yet had not followed up his words with concrete actions.

“On the contrary, we have seen a continued military build-up along the Ukrainian border, we have seen a flow of weapons and fighters across the border from Russia into eastern Ukraine, we have seen an active Russian support of armed separatists in Ukraine,” Rasmussen said.

Moscow has denied those allegations. It says it is interested only in protecting the largely Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine, which it portrays as a target of nationalistic Ukrainian military forces.