Russia offered to build a joint European missile defence shield with NATO yesterday as an alternative to the US system, which Moscow says threatens a new arms race.
The proposal was made by President Putin to visiting NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson as a possible way out of an increasingly bitter wrangle between Moscow and Washington.
"We are aware of the statements made by certain representatives of the West - we can read - who are trying to recreate the image of Russia as the Evil Empire, even though it doesn't scare us any more," said Mr Putin, after talks with Lord Robertson in the Kremlin.
The Evil Empire was the term coined for Moscow by former US president Ronald Reagan. But behind the rhetoric, the missile defence plan is vague. Under the Russian proposals which Lord Robertson said NATO will study, a three-point plan is envisaged. This involves the two sides first agreeing that there is a threat from non-European nations, then agreeing that political solutions cannot stop the threat, before an anti-missile system is even considered.
While Moscow says the shield would be cut-price, this seems uncertain, given that no details of how it would work have been agreed.
"Our concrete proposal is to develop a European non-strategic missile defence system involving Russia and other European countries," said Col Gen Leonid Ivashov, head of foreign relations at the defence ministry.
Lord Robertson welcomed the offer: "What is important now is that we have a Russian proposal to deal with," he said. "We look forward to examining this proposal in detail."
A key part of the proposal for the Russians is that the shield is for "rogue" missiles only, and is "non-strategic" - in other words, that it does not disrupt the balance of nuclear power between Moscow and Washington.
For the NATO team, officially in Moscow to reopen an information centre shut down by Russia during the Kosovo bombing in 1999, it was a welcome respite from 10 days of harsh rhetoric from both sides of the Atlantic.
Last week Washington accused Russia of exporting missile technology to its enemies. Then Russia staged military exercises with long-range bombers and test fired a series of ballistic missiles. Finally, there was harsh criticism by Moscow, and some NATO members as well, of the US-British bombing raids on Iraq.
"NATO and Russia together are building a crisis resistance relationship that will allow us to deal with the tricky issues as well as common issues at stake in the world today," Lord Robertson said.
But any respite is likely to be temporary. Technically, it is difficult enough to conceive of a system able to defend the US from missile attack. It is harder still to imagine a shield constructed for the whole of Europe.
And antagonisms between Russia and NATO extend beyond the use of missiles. The Kremlin says it will oppose NATO's possible expansion into the Baltic states, and it is still smarting from the bombing of Yugoslavia two years ago.
Russia has already signalled that a US decision to deploy its own shield unilaterally could trigger a new arms race. But some Russians last night urged the Kremlin to take a more relaxed attitude, arguing that any US system is many years away from deployment.
"Maybe we don't need to be so quick," said Mr Alex Arbatov, a key member of the parliament's defence watchdog. "We have missiles and the other side have missiles, and every side is afraid of being the first to use them."