Read Charles Bremner's blog from Moscow

President Putin of Russia has made a big shift towards Western efforts to dissuade Iran from building nuclear weapons, President Sarkozy claimed in Moscow last night.

The French leader emerged with the news after a three-hour private dinner that was the first test of his resolve to add a harder edge to his country’s recently cosy relations with Moscow.

Chatting in his hotel, “Super-Sarko” appeared delighted with the success of his “frank and passionate” session at Mr Putin’s dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. The session had been billed as a test of wills between the powerful Russian boss and the would-be new strongman of Western Europe.

Mr Sarkozy’s tone towards the Russian leader shifted sharply from his tough talk of recent weeks, in which he has accused him of “brutal” use of Russian energy supplies as a weapon and criticised his assertive stance abroad. After dinner, Mr Sarkozy said that he had been impressed by Mr Putin’s courage, intelligence and understanding of the world.

In particular, he had sensed a shift on Iran. “I got the impression that our positions have moved much closer together,” he said. “There has been an extremely positive change on the Russian side.”

Mr Sarkozy declined to give details, but he said that Mr Putin did not stick to Russia’s hitherto position that Iran was merely developing civil nuclear capacity.

The French President arrived for his first visit to Moscow sounding the alarm over Iran’s nuclear intentions and urging Moscow to join in tighter sanctions to deter Tehran from building a bomb. Until now Russia has resisted sanctions beyond those already imposed by the United Nations.

Mr Sarkozy, in ebullient form, appeared to believe that he had gained Mr Putin’s ear on several contentious issues in their first extended conversation since his election last May. He said that he had detected new Russian openness on Kosovo, which Europe wants to become independent from Serbia, against Russian wishes. He had also broached his worries about Moscow’s human rights record, including the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the campaigning journalist, and the arrest of homosexual demonstrators.

“I told him that the world has high expectations of a unified Russia and it was a pity that they should be tainted,” Mr Sarkozy told The Times.

In another approach that would have been unthinkable in the days of Jacques Chirac’s close friendship with Mr Putin, Mr Sarkozy said that he had explained to the Russian leader “that France feels that it is good friends with the Americans”.

Russian officials did not comment on his version of the dinner, but voiced reservations earlier in the day over the critical new French stance towards Russia. As well as turning towards the United States, Mr Sarkozy has moved fast to befriend Moscow’s former subject states in east and central Europe — the countries which Mr Chirac offended in 2003 at the time of the Iraq invasion.

He has visited Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary, his father’s homeland. In Sofia last Thursday he said that he was “half East European”, and in the past five days has been visited by Ukrainian, Polish and Czech leaders.

However, his 24-hour visit to the Russian capital is a delicate balancing act. He wants to assert new French influence in Eastern Europe and globally, while retaining Moscow’s favours by not appearing to be obedient to Washington. France depends on Russia for more than 20 per cent of its natural gas supplies.

Mr Sarkozy arrived to a sceptical reception after stating once again that he was serious about persuading Russia to join the campaign to stop Iran’s military nuclear programme.

He told the Russian media: “Between resignation and war . . . there is a responsible stance: toughening sanctions with the aim of bringing Iran to its senses. We are talking about protecting our security from the danger of nuclear proliferation. I will not give ground on an issue which is of such great importance.”

Chequered history

— France and Russia were allies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. But in 1812 Napoleon, below, invaded Russia. France had to retreat after losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers

— The Franco-Russian Alliance, signed in 1894, lasted until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Despite ideological differences, France provided Russia with loans to improve its military and the two cooperated in the First World War. After 1945, they faced each other across the ideological divide of the Cold War. France developed its own nuclear arsenal and joined the UN Security Council and withdrew from Nato

— Since 1992 trade and cooperation has prospered between the countries. France is the sixth-largest investor in Russia. French exports to Russia grew 10 per cent in 2005

— France imports 406 billion cubic feet of Russian gas annually, 24 per cent of its consumption

— Last year France was the world’s sixth largest importer of oil. Russia was its second largest supplier.

Source: www.diplomatie.gouv.fr; www.napoleonguide.com; Eurostat; EIA

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