PRESIDENTS Yeltsin and Clinton appeared determined not to allow their differences on one particular issue to harm relations between the two countries as the Helsinki summit got under way yesterday.
But there was apparently little hope of agreement on the question of NATO's expansion to include former Warsaw Pact countries.
Mr Clinton arrived in the early afternoon yesterday and was taken off Air Force One in a wheelchair; he suffered the indignity of being lowered to the ground in an airport catering truck, probably for security reasons.
A slightly embarrassed Mr Clinton, injured last week in a freak accident when visiting the golfer Greg Norman, was pushed along a red carpet after being brought down from the aircraft.
Some hours later Mr Yeltsin arrived in his new £45 million presidential Ilyushin 96 jetliner Rossiya, and immediately made a plea for the continuation of the partnership established between Russia and the United States. "I think Bill Clinton and his team are willing to seek an agreement and we will part as friends as we always have," Mr Yeltsin said.
He described the formal talks which start today, as "difficult and serious" with repercussions not only for Russia and the US but for the entire world.
Reporters on Air Force One on its way from Washington to Helsinki were told by Mr Clinton's National Security Adviser, Mr Sandy Berger, that agreement on NATO expansion would not be reached.
One area in which progress could be made is that of strategic arms reduction, but even here difficulties are likely to arise. Mr Clinton will want Mr Yeltsin to work towards Russia's ratification of the START 2 treaty and is also expected to launch an initiative for START 3. The planned expansion of NATO - which the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said yesterday was definitely going ahead - will however guarantee that the State Duma will refuse to ratify START 2.
The psychological impact of a new line drawn across Europe is something that Russian analysts have continuously stressed; but there is also a more concrete danger. Russia's already stretched armed forces will be put under serious pressure by a larger NATO and many western analysts believe that this will force the Russians towards a greater reliance on nuclear weapons.
With Russia's nuclear arsenal in poor condition, the theoretical protection to east and central European countries offered by NATO membership could be countered by a danger of nuclear accident.
Mr Clinton is likely to offer some financial aid to the Russian economy, which after five years of reforms is still very much in the doldrums.
Mr Clinton's temporary disability has received a great deal of attention here in Helsinki where the organisation of the summit has been phenomenally efficient. In Moscow the country's biggest selling newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolels, used the Clinton injury to turn the tables on Mr Yeltsin. In a front page cartoon Mr Yeltsin was shown looking disdainfully at his US counterpart who is on crutches. "I fell off a bridge and was fine," says Mr Yeltsin's bubble in a reference to one of his pre surgery escapades.
