WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faces one of her most delicate diplomatic missions yet when she flies into Moscow on Monday to face down rising Russian anger over US policy in eastern Europe.

Rice is expected to meet with President Vladimir Putin, his top security advisers and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for what US officials said would be “extended” talks on Monday and Tuesday on a host of simmering disputes.

Her mission coincides with the worst spike in East-West tensions since President George W. Bush came to power six years ago, notably due to Nato and US military expansion into the former Soviet bloc, US criticism of Putin's democracy record and Kremlin unease with a push toward independence for Kosovo.

Putin appeared to hike up the rhetoric in a speech last week during a military parade on Red Square to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany, which seemed to equate Bush's foreign policy with “the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionalism and diktat in the world as in the Third Reich.” Shocked US diplomats called on the Kremlin to explain Putin's remarks and were assured there was no link intended between Washington's policies and the Nazi era, a senior US official said.

But Rice is still sure to hear some harsh words during her two-day stay in Moscow.

Putin clearly signalled a more confrontational approach with a speech in Munich last February in which he attacked the United States as a reckless “unipolar” power that has made the world more dangerous by pursuing policies that have led to war, ruin and insecurity.

Lavrov followed up with a stern address to Nato foreign ministers in Oslo late last month during which he unleashed a litany of bitter complaints about US and Nato encroachments into former Soviet republics and allies, according to a senior US official who was present at the meeting.

Russia's long festering anger over the eastward expansion of the US-led Nato military alliance boiled after Washington earlier this year announced plans to station anti-missile weapons systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Washington argues the project is designed to defend against future missile attacks from rogue states like Iran, while Moscow calls it a strategic threat to Russia's own defences.

Putin responded last month by announcing that Russia was suspending compliance with a key arms control pact, the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which Moscow feels imposed humiliating conditions on it in the early years following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A US-backed plan, now before the United Nations, to grant supervised independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo has added to Russia's malaise.—AFP