Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel will bring a pragmatic but frank tone to German-Russian relations in her first state visit to Moscow this morning, meeting President Vladimir Putin as well as his critics.
Dr Merkel will seek backing from Mr Putin for EU criticism of Iran's nuclear ambitions as well as energy guarantees following Moscow's gas row with Ukraine.
Her Kremlin visit is likely to follow the formula of her highly praised White House performance on Friday in which she won over President George W. Bush with a combination of praise and sugar-coated criticism.
The Moscow visit is the second stage of a two-part manoeuvre to restore Germany's traditional east-west balance of warmer relations with Washington and cooler ties to Moscow.
"The relationship with Russia will be much more sober," said Alexander Rahr, a Russian expert at the German council on foreign relations. "Merkel will not be too emotional. She already knows and understands the positive and negative sides of Russian life."
Former chancellor Gerhard Schröder made strengthening relations with Russia his key foreign policy goal. It was an economic success, with trade ties reaching a record €37 billion last year. He took the relationship to new heights by calling Mr Putin a "flawless democrat", adopting a child from a St Petersburg orphanage and accepting a job with the Gazprom gas monopoly after leaving office.
In comparison, Dr Merkel's emotional distance was clear in Der Spiegel last week when she talked of a "friendship" with the US but a "strategic partnership" with Russia, adding that she was "filled with concern" about recent developments there, such as the closing of foreign non-governmental organisations.
There will be no saunas or sleigh rides for the visiting chancellor but the two leaders will not be lost for words: former East German Dr Merkel speaks Russian and Mr Putin still has fluent German from his years as a KGB officer in Dresden.
Dr Merkel faces pressure to speak out on controversial issues such as Chechnya and has also promised Warsaw "no policy-making over Polish heads", such as the pipeline deal to carry Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing Poland and Ukraine.
Political observers in Berlin expect a new pragmatic era in relations with Moscow, bedded down in national interest-driven political policy - from energy to human rights rather than camera-driven camaraderie.