President Obama’s ambition of bringing Russia in from the cold was graphically underlined when Iran announced that it had successfully launched its first home-built satellite into orbit, using a rocket that the West believes is part of its long-term ballistic missile programme.

His hopes of winning Russian goodwill also suffered a blow when the Kremlin effectively snatched a key US military base in Central Asia.

The two developments helped to explain why Mr Obama is anxious to usher in a new era of diplomacy with Moscow. Russia, he believes, is central to a series of US foreign policy challenges including efforts to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions and for Russia to open military supply routes to Afghanistan.

Iranian news agencies reported that a Safir-2 rocket launched a satellite called Hope into orbit, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. “With this launch, the Islamic Republic of Iran has officially achieved a presence in space,” President Ahmadinejad said. He dismissed as “old talk” the claim by the West that Iran’s space programme had military goals, saying that the satellite carried a message of “peace and brotherhood” to the world.

Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, said that the satellite would enable Tehran to receive environmental data. The state news agency, IRNA, said that the satellite would take orbital measurements and circle the Earth 15 times a day.

Western experts said, however, that there was an undeniable link between the rocket launch and Tehran’s military programme. “Iran is following what the United States, Russia and China did in the early stages of their missile programmes, transferring the technology from satellite launches to ballistic missiles,” Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane’s Strategic Weapon Systems, said.

President Obama’s hopes of a radical reduction in US and Russian nuclear stockpiles hinge on Russian demands to scrap the planned American missile shield in Eastern Europe. Mr Obama is expected to order a review of George Bush’s plan to deploy ten US interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, a project that has sent a chill through Russian relations with the West. A rethink could open the way for major talks with Russia and the US President’s hopes of a new treaty cutting each country’s stockpiles to as little as 1,000 warheads.

Yet Tehran’s provocative move to launch a satellite, proof of its growing ability to develop a long-range ballistic missile, will increase domestic pressure on Mr Obama to ignore Russian demands and press ahead with the defence shield, because one of its stated aims is to guard America against a long-range Iranian nuclear attack.

Another stumbling block will be Russia’s announcement yesterday that it had effectively bribed Kyrgyzstan into closing a US airbase at Manas, used to resupply Nato troops fighting in Afghanistan. Minutes before the announcement, President Medvedev of Russia had announced that Moscow would give Kyrgyzstan $150 million (£104 million) in aid and a $2 billion loan.

Mr Obama faces a series of other obstacles to his efforts to reduce US and Russian stockpiles from their current levels of roughly 5,000 warheads each. At a time of increased Russian aggression and ambition, and the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, many Republicans in Congress will be fiercely opposed to a new treaty that cuts the US nuclear stockpile.

The current Start pact, under which both sides have halved their stockpiles from 10,000 to 5,000 warheads, expires in December.

Another major demand from the Russians will be a reduction by the US in the number of missiles and bombers able to send nuclear warheads to their target. America’s delivery system is more advanced than Russia’s, and adds to fears in Moscow that America could quickly reconfigure its nuclear threat. Yet there will be significant resistance in the US to scrapping bombers, submarines and missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal