The Kremlin leader struck a hardline tone, warning the West it was an “illusion” to think Russia could be defeated on the battlefield and that any peace deal would have to recognise Russia’s control of swathes of Ukrainian territory.

Putin was speaking at the end of the BRICS summit in the city of Kazan, where he had faced calls from some of Russia’s most important allies for the fighting in Ukraine to end.

“How Russian-American relations will develop after the election will depend on the United States. If they are open, then we will also be open. And if they don’t want it, then fine,” Putin told reporters in Kazan.

Relations between the two superpowers have sunk to their lowest since the Cold War amid Moscow’s military offensive on Ukraine. Next month’s US election is set to be critical in the course of future ties and the conflict in Ukraine.

The Kremlin leader said Moscow was open to considering peace initiatives and welcomed BRICS leaders offering to mediate.

“We are ready to look at any proposals for peace negotiations that are based on the realities on the ground. We won’t accept anything else,” he said. Putin has previously demanded Kyiv effectively capitulate by pulling its troops back as a precondition to ceasefire talks.

Moscow’s opponents “do not conceal their aim to deal our country a strategic defeat”, he said. “I will say directly that these are illusionary calculations, that can be made only by those who do not know Russia’s history.”

Russia has faced fresh accusations of escalating the conflict this week with the United States, South Korea, NATO and Kyiv all saying North Korea had deployed troops to Russia. Kyiv said Thursday it had intelligence the soldiers had already been deployed to Russia’s western Kursk region, where Ukraine is mounting a cross-border offensive. Putin refused to confirm or deny the reports on Thursday, instead accusing Ukraine and the West of aggravating the conflict.

Putin will later sit down for talks with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres in the pair’s first meeting since April 2022. The UN chief had pleaded earlier for a “just peace” in Ukraine in a speech delivered in front of Putin. “We need peace in Ukraine. A just peace in line with the UN Charter, international law and (UN) General Assembly resolution,” Guterres told the summit.

Ukraine has strongly criticised Guterres’s decision to meet the “criminal Putin”.