In Moscow yesterday President Putin promptly backtracked on his weekend announcement that a "breakthrough" had been made on the issue of missile defence in the course of his discussions with President Bush.
On Sunday, after the two men talked at the Genoa G8 summit, Mr Bush took the lead in announcing that a deal could now be done. It would involve the US linking its plans for a missile shield with Russia's desire to cut nuclear stockpiles.
But back in the Kremlin a "clarification" was issued. "There has been no principal breakthrough," said Mr Putin. Hours later, Mr Bush gave his response: "Time is of the essence. If we can't reach agreement we're going to implement."
Staying on in Italy after the Genoa summit, Mr Bush said of his talks with Mr Putin: "I can understand why he wants time and I'm going to give him some time... Time is of the essence... But, if we can't reach an agreement we're going to implement... I have told President Putin that time matters, that I want him to reach an accord sooner rather than later, that I'm interested in getting something done with him."
And so, in the space of a day, the two sides seem back where they started. The US is determined to deploy a missile shield. Russia says this will break the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, upsetting the nuclear balance.
In fact, Sunday's declaration that both sides could bargain was disingenuous. At present the US has 7,000 nuclear warheads and Russia 6,000, with the leaders on both sides pledged to reduce these under the START II agreement to 3,500 apiece by 2007.
Russia wants them to go further, cutting the warheads to 1,500 each, all that Western defence experts think cash-strapped Moscow can afford to maintain.
But linking the issue to missile defence is fruitless. Russia has already said it will need more missiles, not fewer, if Washington deploys the technology to shoot some of them down.
Mr Putin has already said that if the US goes ahead with its missile shield, Russia will convert its missiles to take multiple, rather than single, warheads.
It was a point not missed by the Moscow press yesterday morning. "Russia surrendered!" screamed a banner headline in Kommersant, a newspaper owned by one of Mr Putin's enemies.
Hours later, the Russian President backtracked. "We confirmed our commitment to the 1972 ABM pact," he announced. "Nevertheless there has been considerable progress."
Just what progress he means is unclear. Russia has said No, the US has said Yes. It is unclear what the US National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice, will find to discuss when she arrives for talks today.
In fact, Moscow has good reasons for opposing the shield. Doing so actually draws Russia closer to western European countries, which are also nervous about the US plan and worried that it will leave them uncovered.
Besides, the issue is now woven into the fabric of the delicate East-West tension which has surfaced during the Putin presidency. Russia is angry about NATO expansion, about criticism of its war in Chechnya, and about a tough schedule for repaying debts. Progress on the missile shield issue will probably involve progress on all these other issues, too.
More to the point, antagonism towards the United States is good for business. Hostility towards the Bush administration was the cornerstone of last week's Russia-China friendship treaty, which was swiftly followed by a £1.2 billion arms agreement. More deals are in the pipeline, possibly including the sale of two Russian nuclear missile-firing submarines.
Mr Putin, a former KGB agent, leans heavily on the support of the security forces and cannot be seen to be bowing down to the old enemy.
"In Putin's key constituency, the defence and military, there's a lot of resistance to compromise with the United States," said a Moscow analyst, Mr Pavel Felgenhauer. "The policy is to keep the Americans on the hook, to pull their nose."