President Barack Obama heads to Moscow today promising a far-reaching effort to "reset" US-Russia relations that hit a post-Cold War low under the Bush administration.
Mr Obama is expected to clinch summit deals on the outlines of a new nuclear arms pact and improved cooperation in the Afghan war effort, but deep divisions will remain over US missile defense, Nato expansion and the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.
However, an outline deal on cuts to nuclear weapons that Mr Obama was supposed to sign with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev early next week is not yet ready, a Russian source was quoted as saying today.
Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev were expected to sign a so-called framework agreement and then instruct negotiators to produce a detailed treaty ready for signing by December, when an existing pact known as Start-1 regulating the number of long-range nuclear weapons expires.
"I can confirm that the final agreement of the document is not yet completed," Interfax news agency quoted a highly placed source in Russia's foreign ministry as saying.
Travelling to Moscow for the first time since taking office, Mr Obama hopes to keep building pragmatic ties Mr Medvedev but is likely to have a more strained introduction to Vladimir Putin, who still dominates Russian politics.
Mr Obama set the stage with a pre-trip assessment that Mr Putin still had "one foot" planted in the Cold War. Mr Putin, who hand-picked Medvedev as his successor last year and has stayed on as prime minister, rejected Mr Obama's criticism and insisted it was US policy that needed to be updated.
Despite the testy exchange, the two sides have settled on the old issue of arms control as the cornerstone for forging a less rancorous relationship between Washington and Moscow.
"I seek to reset relations with Russia because I believe that Americans and Russians have many common interests, interests that our governments recently have not pursued as actively as we could have," Obama told the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazetaahead of the summit.
He was due to leave Washington later today and to hold talks with Mr Medvedev at the Kremlin on Monday.
Though details remained under wraps, the two presidents were expected to lay down markers for negotiating further cuts in the arsenals of the two biggest nuclear powers.
The talks will form the basis for a treaty to be signed by December, when an existing pact known as Start-1 expires. The aim is to reduce the number of deployed warheads below the 1,700-2,200 allowed under the current pact.
The summit will also yield the Kremlin's permission to ship U.S. weapons supplies across Russian territory en route to U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, sources on both sides said.
The transit deal will open up a crucial corridor for the United States as it steps up its fight against a resurgent Taliban in line with Obama's new Afghanistan strategy.
The two agreements will be touted as evidence that both sides want to "press the reset button" - to use Washington's phrase - on their rocky relations of recent years.
But it will be harder to bridge the gap on other issues.
Mr Obama acknowledged in the Novaya Gazeta interview "Russian sensitivities" over a proposed US anti-missile shield in Europe. But he made clear he would not accept any effort by Moscow to link arms control talks to missile defence.
Moscow, which sees proposed missile-defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic as a threat to its security, has insisted in recent weeks that the two issues are intertwined.
Mr Obama reiterated the US stance that any system would be to protect against a missile threat from Iran, not from Russia, and said he hoped to convince Moscow to join in the project.
He has been less enthusiastic about the missile shield than his predecessor, George W. Bush, but seems unlikely to abandon it altogether without getting something in return.
Mr Obama has said if Iran's development of nuclear capability can be averted there will be no need for a shield, a suggested incentive for Russia to use its influence with Tehran.
Aides also maintain he has no intention of offering concessions on limiting Nato expansion. Despite that, he has been less assertive than Mr Bush in pushing Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia, something Russia fiercely opposes.
Reuters