Russian officials got a 'reset button' gift from Americans in March in a symbolic exchange [AFP]

He was due to leave Washington later on Sunday and hold talks with Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, at the Kremlin on Monday.

"I seek to reset relations with Russia because I believe that Americans and Russians have many common interests," Obama told Novaya Gazeta, the Russian opposition newspaper, on the eve of his visit.

He said there were "interests that our governments recently have not pursued as actively as we could have".

Obama hopes to keep building pragmatic ties with Medvedev but is likely to have a more strained introduction to Vladimir Putin, who still dominates Russian politics.

He set the stage with a pre-trip assessment that Putin still had "one foot" planted in the Cold War.

Putin, who handpicked Medvedev as his successor last year and has stayed on as prime minister, rejected Obama's criticism and insisted it was US policy that needed to be updated.

Deep divisions

Obama is expected to clinch summit deals on the outlines of a new nuclear arms pact and improved co-operation in the Afghan war effort.

However, deep divisions remain over US missile defence, Nato expansion and the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

Washington and Moscow have settled on the old issue of arms control as the cornerstone for forging a less strained relationship.

But details remain under wraps, though the two men are expected to negotiate further cuts in the arsenals of the world's biggest nuclear powers.

The talks will form the basis for a treaty to be signed by December, when an existing pact known as START-1 expires.

The aim is to reduce the number of deployed warheads below the 1,700-2,200 allowed under the current pact.

Transit deal

The summit will also yield the Kremlin's permission to ship US weapons supplies across Russian territory to US-led forces in Afghanistan, sources on both sides said.

The transit deal will open up a crucial corridor for the US as it steps up its fight against the Taliban in line with Obama's new Afghanistan strategy.

Obama acknowledged in the Novaya Gazeta interview "Russian sensitivities" over a proposed US anti-missile shield in Europe.

But he made clear he would not accept any effort by Moscow to link arms-control talks to missile defence.

Moscow, which sees proposed missile-defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic as a threat to its security, has insisted in recent weeks that the two issues are inseparable.

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