Germany, Russia Bond at Summit

MOSCOW — German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Tuesday ended his second visit to Russia in four months, cementing the impression that Russian-German relations are moving ahead at a time when Moscow’s ties with Washington are on hold.

The unspoken message of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, analysts here said, is that if U.S.-Russian relations remain bogged down, Moscow has other economic and political partners to whom it can turn.

At the end of his meeting with Schroeder, Putin said he saw the relationship with Germany as a bridge to stronger ties with a Europe that is rapidly unifying.

“As Germany is one of the leaders in Europe, we hope that cooperation with it will help to broaden Russia’s cooperation with the European community in general,” he said.

Aside from business and investments, he said, Russia is looking for points of agreement with Europe on questions of security and defense.

During the summit in St. Petersburg, Schroeder discussed the $48 billion in debt that Russia inherited from the Soviet Union, 40% of which is owed to Germany.

No agreement was reached, but the two leaders decided that the question of whether part of Moscow’s debt to Berlin could be converted into German equity in Russian industry should be turned over to a panel of experts.

Russia has long been interested in a substantial write-off of its Soviet-era debt, arguing that as it reconstructs its economy it should not be burdened by loans that were granted to the now nonexistent Soviet Union.

Putin, who served as a KGB agent in East Germany, speaks German, and during the two-day visit, he and Schroeder went out together for a stroll and a beer at a St. Petersburg restaurant, toured the world-famous Hermitage art collection and shopped for Russian souvenirs.

NATO Expansion a Bone of Contention

The two disagreed on some issues. For example, Schroeder insisted that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must be open to new members, while Russia strongly opposes NATO’s further expansion.

But in general, Schroeder appeared to be an agreeable guest, not sharply criticizing Putin for Russia’s war in the separatist republic of Chechnya or the government’s moves to assume control of the country’s only nationwide independent television network.

In a disappointment to journalists at the NTV network, Schroeder appeared to sidestep their concerns that Russia’s press freedoms are endangered.

At one point, speaking during a radio call-in show Tuesday, Schroeder seemed to embrace Putin’s stated view that the NTV struggle is a business matter.

“Under my understanding of the freedom of speech, one should distinguish between [questions of] property on the one hand, and the notion of journalism on the other,” the German chancellor said.

Results Are Called a Success for Putin

Political analyst Andrei V. Kortunov of the Russian Science Foundation, a private think tank, called the overall results of the summit “quite successful for Putin. It demonstrated that Schroeder doesn’t intend to disapprove of Putin’s solving internal problems the way [he] sees fit.”

In contrast to Russia’s deepening ties with Germany, Washington and Moscow appear to have become less close since the inauguration of President Bush.

U.S. officials reportedly have brushed off a Russian request for an early meeting between Bush and Putin. Russia has accused some Bush administration officials of “Cold War” attitudes. And U.S. proposals for a national antimissile defense shield, and the recent tit-for-tat expulsion of alleged espionage agents by Russia and the United States, are also causing strains.

On Monday, Schroeder alluded to cooling U.S.-Russian relations but said he hadn’t come to Russia as a go-between. “We will not serve as a middleman between Russia and the United States,” he said. “This is an issue with which Russia needs no help.”

Nikolai P. Shmelyov, deputy director of the Institute of Europe, said that the summit was mainly about economics and that it would be foolish to think that Russia could or would “drive a wedge” between Europe and the United States.

But Kortunov said that in specific cases, such as the U.S. plans for an antimissile defense shield, gaps between Washington and its European allies may exist.

“I don’t rule out that on some concrete issues the positions of Russia and Germany may become closer than the positions between the U.S.A. and Germany,” he said.

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Sergei L. Loiko and Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.