President Vladimir Putin says he will challenge US President George W. Bush when they next meet over whether Washington is trying to "isolate" Russia.
In an end-of-year news conference today, the Kremlin leader also implied criticism of Washington's Iraq policy saying he doubted that planned elections there would be democratic while the country was under full occupation.
Mr Putin, who forged a strong personal bond with Mr Bush after throwing his weight quickly behind the war on terror, hailed the US leader as a "decent and consistent" person. He said he saw the United States not only as a partner but an ally of Russia.
Relations between Russia and the West have been strained over what critics have described as a Kremlin campaign to crush oil major YUKOS' politically ambitious principal owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky as well as over Moscow's interference in a presidential election in neighbouring ex-Soviet Ukraine.
Mr Putin's overt backing of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in the rigged poll, to be re-run on Sunday, drew criticism from Western countries including the United States.
Russia in turn has accused the West of seeking to pull Ukraine into its camp and away from Moscow. Mr Putin reacted sharply to a question referring to statements that Russia was better off without Ukraine.
"If we take this as a desire to limit Russia's ability to develop its relations with all its neighbours, then it represents an aspiration to isolate the Russian Federation," he said.
"I don't think that this is the aim of US policy," he said.
Mr Putin went on to say that, if indeed there was a plan to isolate Russia, it would explain a policy in Chechnya "directed at creating elements that would destabilise the Russian Federation".
This appeared to be a reference to Western calls for a political settlement in Chechnya where Russian forces have been battling separatist guerrillas off and on for 10 years.
During the three-hour news conference that touched on a wide range of issues, Mr Putin voiced continued support for the war on terror, but sniped at Washington over Iraq where he opposed the US-led military invasion.
He said Moscow welcomed the aspiration of all those who wanted to see the situation normalise but he added: "I have grave doubts as to whether democratic elections can be guaranteed in conditions of full occupation."