Putin, along with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, has sought a central role for the United Nations in postwar Iraq, a position that has been treated with open skepticism in Washington.

The talks also come after Moscow was dealt a blow by one of Washington's top military hawks on Thursday, who suggested that Russia should now forget about ever winning back its debts from Iraq.

"I hope for example they'll think about the very large debts that come from money that was lent to Saddam Hussein to buy weapons," and then write off those debts in a gesture helping Iraq rebuild, US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress.

Moscow appeared to be stunned by the statement.

It had fought a furious diplomatic campaign against the war in a bid to preserve Russian companies' rights to lucrative oil contracts and safeguard Baghdad's Soviet-era debt.

The debt stands at around eight billion dollars (7.4 billion euros) and has grown to some 16 billion dollars (15 billion euros), if interest payments are included.

"I saw no such proposal" from the US side to write off the Iraqi debts, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov commented flatly when pressed by reporters during a visit to Tajikistan.

"Officially, the Russian foreign ministry has received no such proposal," he said.

Meanwhile the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament said angrily: "Iraq is not America's 51st state yet.

"If anything, the Americans owe us something like two billion dollars for the (oil) contracts that were interrupted by the war," Gennady Seleznyov said in televised remarks.

Putin was first scheduled to meet regional officials before holding his first formal talks -- with Schroeder -- at 1300 GMT.

He was later due to meet Chirac and the three leaders were then scheduled to hold joint meetings before setting off to a dinner and later meeting reporters. A press conference is expected for some time after 1740 GMT.

Putin has said little about the war since its launch on March 20 in a bid to avoid a rupture in relations with the United States and did not speak to reporters upon his arrival in Saint Petersburg.

In a blow to the summit, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan cancelled his attendance earlier in the week.

Many Moscow newspapers, especially those linked closely to the Kremlin administration, have simply ignored the talks.

But other newspapers have adopted a tough stance. They said Russia's own military and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov gave the United States the cold shoulder by refusing a reported invitation to visit Washington.

"By announcing that the visit was cancelled, the Russian diplomats -- as it were -- gave Washington a slap in the face, for their failure to agree, budge or listen to Russian arguments about switching the Iraqi debate to the United Nations," the Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.

Russian news agencies reported that Ivanov had cancelled the visit while touring Central Asia on Thursday. The meeting had never been officially announced by Washington.

The Nezavisimaya added that the Russian authorities were now "flaunting the new anti-Americanism which is growing in Russia."

Some Kremlin officials however tried to iron over the ripples in relations with Washington.

They said the meeting was in no way meant to be a diplomatic riposte to the summit which US President George W. Bush held with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Belfast earlier in the week.

"Neither we nor our partners have ever intended to hold a parallel summit," the Kremlin's top foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko told Russian news agencies.

SPACE.WIRE