Bush and Putin: From soulmates to odd couple

By Matt Spetalnick - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After their first meeting six years ago, U.S. President George W. Bush declared that he had peered into Russian President Vladimir Putin's soul and liked what he saw.

Now, with U.S.-Russia relations chillier than at any time since the Cold War, the two leaders will seem more like an odd couple than kindred spirits when they meet at the G8 summit in Germany this week and at the Bush family estate in July.

At stake is the future of one of the world's most important bilateral relationships.

Yet the main issues that divide Washington and Moscow have become so thorny and the rhetoric so heated that some experts are skeptical whether Bush and Putin, both heading into the final stages of their tenures, can do much to patch things up.

"Trust has broken down," said Christopher Preble, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington. "At this point, you're not going to be able to restore good relations by simply saying you're soulmates."

Tensions have been on the rise over Russia's bitter opposition to a planned U.S. missile defence system in Eastern Europe, U.S. criticism over what is seen as Putin's rollback of democracy and disagreement over statehood for Kosovo.

This is not the way it started out.

Though the backslapping former Texas governor and the tight-lipped ex-Soviet spymaster seemed to have little in common, they hit it off well when they first met in June 2001.