Bush, Putin test wary friendship

WASHINGTON -- Russian President Vladimir Putin's uneven record on reform and President Bush's campaign to spread democracy are sorely testing the wary friendship that grew between Russia and the United States out of the hostility of the Cold War.

From the U.S. perspective, Putin has been backsliding on democratic reforms and cracking down on businesses, the media and political institutions. Bush's actions in Iraq, in former Soviet satellites and beyond have raised red flags in Moscow -- in some quarters, nostalgia for the days of the hammer and sickle.

Bush and Putin dine together in Moscow on Saturday and then participate the next day in Red Square celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Each will arrive with a nagging list of the other's faults.

For one, Putin's plan to sell arms to Syria has raised fears about exacerbating an already volatile Middle East situation.

"The relationship has gotten more complicated in the last year," said Andrew C. Kuchins, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who cited the "simultaneous currents of the good Putin and the bad Putin."

"Probably tenser than it has been in the past," Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution said of the relationship.

Washington shuddered when Putin, a former KGB colonel, expressed nostalgia for the clarity of the autocratic Soviet government in his recent state of the nation speech.

From the Russian view, Bush pursued an unnecessary war in Iraq and the United States has been meddling where it shouldn't. Russia suspects the Americans of interfering in last year's elections in Ukraine, where the Orange Revolution and Viktor Yushchenko swept away Putin's preferred candidate.

Bush's promotion of freedom and liberty to all corners -- the two words were the hallmark of his January inaugural address -- are considered code in Russia for challenging the status quo. His trip this weekend includes stops in Latvia and Georgia, two nascent democracies.

"I believe Russia's interests lie to her west. I believe that Russia, by embracing the values that we share, will be able to deal with the many problems that she has," Bush said in an interview with Estonian television.

He said he would talk to Putin "in a cooperative spirit. This is not an antagonistic relationship."

Early in the Bush era, the underpinning of U.S.-Russian ties was a post-Sept. 11 solidarity in the war on terrorism. Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the terrorists struck, and he later provided crucial support by opening Russian airspace and former Soviet military bases for the fight against al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

"America needed friends and look who was there with outstretched arms -- Russia," said Leon Aron, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

Russia even shared intelligence with the United States on terrorism, a long way from the Cold War days of mutual assured destruction, the Cuban Missile crisis and even Ronald Reagan's admonishment to "trust, but verify."

Through the years, the ties between the two countries have been reflected in the personal chemistry of their leaders.

Fear of nuclear war filled the gap between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. Richard M. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev found enough common ground for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev nurtured a rapprochement amid Soviet talk of glasnost and perestroika.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 changed the dynamic of the relationship, leaving the United States as the lone superpower and Russia and its former satellite states picking up the pieces.

Bill Clinton enjoyed a boisterous relationship with Boris Yeltsin. In June 2001, George W. Bush looked Putin in the eyes and "found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy."

Events late last year in Russia -- the barring of direct voting for governors, the approach to the Ukraine elections and the criminal case against the Yukos oil company and its wealthy owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Putin adversary -- have strained the relationship with the United States.

"Russia is the only major country in the world that has experienced serious democratic erosion," said Michael McFaul, an analyst at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. "That's a problem for the president in dealing with Putin."

Still, the reasons for strong U.S.-Russian ties remain.

The United States is concerned about the Soviet stockpile of weapons and ensuring that they don't fall into terrorists' hands. Russia is a participant in the six-party talks designed to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Russia also is building a reactor in the Iranian city of Bushehr and the United States fears this could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

"There are no friends. There are interests," Aron said.

Bush's term ends in January 2009, while Putin is slated to finish his second term in spring 2008, a turnover that would reverberate in the middle of a U.S. presidential campaign. There are suspicions, analysts say, is that some attempt will be made to amend the Russian constitution to ensure that Putin remains in power.

The prospect of a non-democratic election or no election would be "a major blow to U.S.-Russia relations," Kuchins said.

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EDITOR'S NOTE -- Donna Cassata has covered foreign affairs issues in Washington since 1989.