Relations between Russia and the west have, for a number of reasons, become notably less cordial over the past year or so. The imprisonment of the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodokovsky in 2004 - for what are widely thought to be political motives; the apparent erosion of Russian democracy; the savage war in Chechnya; the disagreement over the eastward expansion of NATO and the Russian-Ukrainian dispute last winter about gas supplies all contributed to the cooling.
A recent report by the influential American Council on Foreign Relations suggested Russia is moving in the wrong direction. And in the meantime, the Russians, newly enriched by soaring oil and gas revenues, are in no mood to listen to foreign advice.
