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EXACTLY what secret understanding is developing between George Bush and Vladimir Putin as they head tentatively towards possible negotiations on altering the 1972 anti-ballistic missile accord?

Has Chechnya been thrown into the mix, and, if so, is that why there's deafening silence from the Bush administration on Russian human rights violations in the rebel republic - violations that constitute genocide, according to some Russian war critics?

On Capitol Hill and the diplomatic circuit those questions are being asked with mounting urgency as politicians here and governments overseas try to make sense of the two meetings Mr Bush and Mr Putin have had, and what those encounters may herald for US-Russian relations.

Both leaders have to tread warily in a diplomatic game which the White House hopes will lead to the Kremlin dropping its opposition to the deployment of a US missile shield.

Some senior figures in the Russian military remain sceptical of any ABM changes being discussed. And Republican hawks are anxious that Mr Bush does not give away too much in his attempt to secure Russian assent to a missile defence system - an assent the administration apparently feels it needs to placate European and Democratic Party opposition.

Mistrust and suspicion on both sides, as well as jockeying for advantage, are also likely to make the going difficult and often opaque. What is clear, though, is that the Bush administration is moving along apace with its U-turn as regards Russia. In less than a year the president has moved from regarding Russia as more or less an adversary to a possible partner.

The administration appears determined to have some concrete proposals ready by the next scheduled meeting between the two leaders in Shanghai in October.

This new period of diplomatic engagement between the two cold war enemies has caught much of the world's media slow-footed. There was an element of press disbelief after Mr Bush's first meeting with Mr Putin in Slovenia in June, when the US president proclaimed that he had "looked the man in the eye; I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy".

Their second meeting, in Genoa in July, was also an eye-opener, resulting as it did in an unexpected joint statement indicating the intention to link US-Russian consultations on missile defence and the ABM treaty to strategic arms reduction talks.

Noticeable on both occasions was the lack of any reference by the US president to events in Chechnya. Diplomats here believe this is linked with the administration effort to woo Mr Putin.

Mr Bush has shown remarkable discipline in ignoring Russia's increasingly brutal campaign against separatists in the rebel republic. Nor has there been any US response to the Kremlin's startling likening of the conflict in Chechnya with Northern Ireland, a comparison that Russian officials hope will continue to persuade western governments to remain relatively quiet about the bloodletting there.

In fact, since becoming president, Mr Bush has made absolutely no public comment on Chechnya.

by Jamie Dettmer
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