Prime Minister Tony Abbott has fired a diplomatic broadside at Russia, saying it would find more friends if it tried to be a superpower for peace and freedom instead of trying to recreate lost glories.

As Russian president Vladimir Putin prepares to arrive in Brisbane for the G20 summit and a small fleet of his navy holds exercises in the Coral Sea, the prime minister didn’t mince words in Canberra.

At a joint press conference with British prime minister David Cameron, Mr Abbott said Russia was being much more assertive now than it had been for a very long time.

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He cited the “bullying” of Ukraine, increased military flights in Japan’s air space and the naval task group now in the South Pacific.

Mr Abbott revealed some of the advice he gave Mr Putin during a one-on-one meeting the pair had on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Beijing this week.

“Russia would be so much more attractive if it was aspiring to be a superpower for peace and freedom and prosperity,” he said.

Instead it was trying to recreate “the lost glories of tsarism or the old Soviet Union”.

Mr Abbott said Russia’s latest posturing with warships in waters north of Australia was part of a “regrettable pattern” of bullying and aggression.

He reiterated his call for Russia to come clean, apologise and atone for its involvement in the MH17 disaster, a sore point between Canberra and Moscow.

Mr Cameron raised the prospect of increasing sanctions against Russia if matters in Ukraine worsened.

Kiev says it is readying for fresh combat operations in its war-torn east as NATO backed claims that Moscow has poured columns of military hardware across the border.

“I would still hope that the Russians will see sense and recognise that they should allow Ukraine to develop as an independent and free country,” Mr Cameron said.

“They will be putting themselves into a very awkward position in their relations with the rest of the world (if they don’t)”.

AAP