Bush's talks with Putin will come during the annual Group of Eight summit in Germany, where the American president will offer a global climate plan that falls short of the wishes of many of the allied leaders around the table.

For the first time since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, neither the threat of Islamic terrorism nor Iraq is expected to overshadow the official agenda of the allied gathering.

Bush also will no longer have to face one of his fiercest critics among Western leaders, Jacques Chirac, who has been succeeded by the more U.S.-friendly Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France.

Bush's trip begins in the Czech Republic with a speech in Prague on Tuesday to a pro-democracy forum. From there he goes to the G-8 summit at a Baltic Sea resort in Heiligendamm, Germany, until Friday.

He will then spend a day in Poland before flying to Rome for his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

On June 10, he will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Albania. The following day he will conclude the trip with meetings in Sofia, Bulgaria.

At almost every stop, Bush will find himself enmeshed in issues that divide the United States and Russia, and have led to a ratcheting up of rhetoric out of the Kremlin that has shaken the State Department.

In a speech Thursday in Baltimore, David Kramer, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, blasted Putin for “saber-rattling” and for making “rather unhelpful comments,” such as accusing the United States of imperialism and likening it to the Third Reich.

National Security Adviser Steve Hadley told reporters yesterday that the administration had protested Putin's Third Reich reference, calling it “not particularly constructive for U.S.-Russia relations.”

Because of widespread alarm over the direction of those relations, Bush has invited Putin to join him July 1-2 at his parents' summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. It is the first time the president has invited any foreign leader there, and he hopes it will soften their policy disputes.

Those disputes include the status of Kosovo and U.S. plans to begin installing components of a missile-defense system in countries close to Russia, including Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Kremlin has threatened to use its veto at the United Nations to block passage of a resolution supporting independence for the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, which has been under U.N. administration since 1999.

In an interview with Bulgarian television Thursday, Bush acknowledged that the missile plan has led to “a flare-up” with Russia, but he said he hopes to persuade Putin it is no threat to Russia.

“We're not trying to isolate Russia,” he said. “What we're attempting to do is protect ourselves and friends and allies against a rogue regime with a missile.”

If Russia hoped its opposition would split Washington from Europe, though, that has not happened.

“The backdrop to this meeting is the sharp decline in Russia's standing and reputation since the last G-8, not just with the U.S. but in all of Europe,” said Steve Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who was a special adviser on Russian issues for President Clinton.

Bush's Kennebunkport invitation has made any blowup in Germany less likely, Sestanovich said. Having a follow-up meeting already set “will further reduce the bilateral drama between the two of them.”

The tensions between Bush and Putin stand in contrast to the rest of the G-8, where what is shaping up as a wholesale change at the top of the alliance may result in a less-volatile summit than those of recent years.

In 2005, U.S. critic Gerhard Schroeder was succeeded by conservative Angela Merkel as German chancellor.

Leaders also changed in Japan, Italy and Canada last year. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is in his final days in office, Putin is attending his last summit, and Bush is heading toward the end of his second term.

“You do not have among the leaders there now the kind of hostility and the dismissiveness at the personal level that was apparent even before Iraq,” said Simon Serfaty, an expert on Europe at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The atmosphere is also improved because all the leaders want to close the split that developed over Iraq.

“The instinct is to move away from the shadows of Iraq and try to craft some new action points for the trans-Atlantic partners and try to keep the wheels turning on that,” said Julianne Smith, Europe program director for CSIS.

That does not mean the Europeans are in sync with Bush on all major issues. Indeed, they are almost all at odds with him on global climate change, the issue Merkel has put at the top of the summit agenda.

“If I were to look back over the last six years and say what, other than Iraq, most causes angst and acrimony in Europe toward the United States, it's the climate change issue,” said Charles Kupchan, director of European Affairs for the National Security Council under Clinton.

But Kupchan said the Europeans are not looking for a fight and have been pleased that Bush is moving – slowly – in their direction. He said they are willing to wait for the next U.S. president for further movement.