The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is due to hold talks with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, in Moscow today amid claims that Washington has agreed to stop criticising Russia's human rights record in return for improved relations.

Three years ago today Anna Politkovskaya, a courageous journalist who exposed appalling human rights offenses in Chechnya, was shot five times as she entered her Moscow apartment building....Sadly, there have been, and will be, more murders. And we all pay the price.

A week after a Moscow summit intended to smooth over the differences between Russia and the United States, both countries yesterday engaged in displays of military might near Russia’s southern border.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev paused in the last, quiet hours of a dying year to sign into law a controversial bill that eliminates jury trials for "crimes against the state," a move that lawyers and human rights groups fear will be the start of a dangerous exertion of Kremlin control over government critics.

Russia has intensified efforts to develop new ballistic missiles in response to U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile system in Europe, Interfax news agency quoted a top Russian general as saying on Friday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned in a nationally televised address Wednesday that he will deploy short-range missiles near Poland capable of striking NATO territory if the new Obama administration presses ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe.

In a challenge to 60 years of U.S. leadership in Europe, Russia's president said Wednesday that America's financial crisis had diminished its power and called for a new security pact to rival NATO.

In the aftermath of last month's war between Russia and U.S.-backed Georgia, Kremlin-watchers in Moscow are worried that Russia and America are closer to direct confrontation than at any point since the end of the Cold War.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday....warned Moscow that it is playing "a very dangerous game" by resuming Cold War-era strategic bomber patrols close to the Alaskan coast.

"Slowly, the Iron Curtain is being rebuilt," said Jacek Palasinski, veteran foreign affairs commentator for the Polish television network TVN24. "Europe will be divided again -- the lines are different, pushed farther east, but the division is the same. And dangerous."

Russia plowed closer to all-out war with Georgia on Saturday, sending warplanes to bomb deep inside the neighboring country and preparing to move more troops into the fray over a pro-Moscow separatist republic.

Russia sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province of South Ossetia and bombed Georgian towns Saturday in a major escalation of the conflict that has left scores of civilians dead and wounded.

World leaders fight terrorism all the time, with summit meetings and sound bites and security initiatives. But they have studiously ignored one of the most common and brutal varieties of terrorism in the world today.

China and Russia sharply condemned US missile defense plans yesterday, taking a harder common line that reinforces an already strong strategic partnership during Dmitry Medvedev's first foreign trip as Russian president.

Protesters who took to the streets of the Russian capital Monday to demonstrate against the weekend presidential election were roughed up and carted off in buses by throngs of riot police.

European observers this morning condemned Russia's presidential election, won overwhelmingly by Dmitry Medvedev, as "not fair" and a denial of the "democratic potential" of the country's voters.

Over the past eight years, in the name of reviving Russia after the tumult of the 1990s, Mr. Putin has waged an unforgiving campaign to clamp down on democracy and extend control over the government and large swaths of the economy.

President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia could aim nuclear missiles at Ukraine if its neighbor and former fraternal republic in the Soviet Union joins the NATO alliance and hosts elements of a missile defense system proposed by the Bush administration.

President Vladimir Putin said Friday that "a new arms race has been unleashed in the world" as the United States moves forward with a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

Election officials confirmed yesterday they stand to gain financially if Mr. Medvedev wins outright. Money that would be spent organizing a second round of voting can instead go to staff bonuses, they said. About one billion rubles, or about $40.6 million, has been earmarked for a possible second round.

Growing friction between the United States and Russia over Iran is only part of an increasingly difficult relationship that many diplomats and experts consider to be in its worst shape since the end of the Cold War, and at risk of further deterioration.

President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday endorsed as his successor Dmitri A. Medvedev, a protégé with no background in the state security services and virtually no power base in the Kremlin.

Relations between Moscow and the West have been poor lately, but they are headed for new lows this month as the diplomatic wrangling over independence for the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo enters its endgame.

International observers issued a highly scathing report on Russia's elections yesterday, describing the poll as "not fair" and highlighting numerous flaws including the "unprecedented" abuse of office by President Vladimir Putin.

Across Russia, officials loyal to the Kremlin have used unprecedented administrative pressure and harassment to disrupt the electoral campaigns of opposition parties and maximize the vote of United Russia, the party that President Vladimir Putin is leading into Sunday's parliamentary elections...

Today's summit in Bratislava between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a golden opportunity for reassessing conflict and peacemaking in the age of terrorism.