President Vladimir Putin called for improving Russia’s ties with the West to prevent a return to the Cold War, while keeping a hard line toward NATO, which he accused of being completely “contemptuous” toward his nation.  “If we continue to act according to this logic, stirring up tensions and building up forces to scare each other, we will eventually get to another Cold War,” Putin said in an address to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday. “We have a totally different logic—we are looking for cooperation to reach a compromise.” Putin, who was joined at the annual showcase event in his home town by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said his country wanted to restore its relationship with the European Union, Russia’s main trading partner. At the same time, he ruled out unilateral concessions and accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of menacing Russia’s borders. Restrictions on financial and technology transfers introduced by the U.S. and the EU as a response to Russia’s role in the Ukrainian conflict—along with the collapse of commodity prices—have triggered the country’s longest recession in two decades. Russia is benefiting from growing opposition to them within the 28-member bloc. A counter-ban that Russia imposed on most EU food imports has cost exporters billions of euros. ‘Strictly Retaliatory’ “Russia didn’t initiate today’s falling out and problems, the imposition of sanctions. All our actions have been and remain strictly retaliatory,” Putin said. The EU’s economic sanctions will be extended for another six months, according to European officials.The bloc on Friday prolonged separate measures targeting individuals and businesses linked to Russia’s annexation of Crimea for a year as the Russian leader was speaking. Renzi told the forum that all parties should work together for better relations with Russia though he stressed that respect for last year’s Ukraine peace accord is a condition for a return to completely normal ties. The prospects for the global economy can improve “if we have an attitude of openness, not of closure,” he said. NATO Criticism While Putin struck a conciliatory tone on the EU, he accused NATO of inciting the conflict over Ukraine to justify its existence. Russia has protested about the eastward expansion of the U.S.-led alliance into former Soviet states and the two sides are engaged in a mutual military build-up in the Baltic region. “The Soviet Union is no longer, the Warsaw Pact is is no longer,” Putin said. “Why does the alliance have to continuously expand its infrastructure up to Russia’s borders?” Still, unless there is an escalation in Ukraine, where pro-Russian rebels are locked in an uneasy standoff with Ukrainian government forces, it’s likely there will be a move to start easing EU sanctions at the end of the year, according to Joerg Forbrig, senior program director of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. in Berlin. “There are a whole number of capitals in Europe that are itching to get back to some form of business as usual and the Russian side has spotted this sentiment very well and is rolling out a very smart diplomacy of slicing EU unity,” Forbrig said by phone.