Russian President Vladimir Putin, who travels to Brussels late on Monday with his wife Lyudmila, plans an hour-long meeting with NATO Secretary-General George Robertson but is not expected to go to the alliance's headquarters.
A long-term strategic plan for the 15-member EU to take advantage of Russia's colossal gas and oil reserves, and the imminent introduction of the euro currency in most of the EU, will also feature high on the agenda at Wednesday's summit.
Belgium's ambassador to Russia, Andre Mernier, told reporters a high-level working group could be set up to promote a planned "common European economic space", which would work on harmonising EU and Russian laws.
"The summit, clearly, is part of the continuing rapprochement between the European Union and Russia," he said. "Of course, terrorism will form part of the discussions." Belgium holds the EU's rotating presidency. Putin has won plaudits from Washington, NATO and Europe for his response to the September 11 attacks, and new understanding from Western leaders of Russia's dragging conflict in Chechnya. Putin last Monday offered to swap intelligence on international terror groups, open an air corridor for humanitarian supplies to areas affected by the fight against terrorism, aid search and rescue missions, and arm groups fighting the radical Islamic Taliban group in Afghanistan. Despite the threat of U.S. retaliation, the Taliban have refused to hand over Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, the key suspect in the attacks on New York and Washington that killed more than 6,000 people.
Putin has linked the attacks against the United States to Russia's battle in rebel Chechnya against what it says are extremists bent on founding an Islamic republic in the Caucasus. And he has found fresh understanding on the subject from Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and U.S. President George W. Bush's administration.
In a sign of warming ties, Russia and NATO defence ministers vowed last week to work closely on fighting terrorism, a pact unthinkable two years ago when Moscow froze ties over NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia during the Kosovo conflict.
While Russia remains hostile to NATO expansion eastwards, notably into the ex-Soviet Baltic states, diplomats say Moscow is not currently focused on the issue.
In contrast, Russia has shown growing interest in the EU's common defence and security policy, which provides for a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force to manage regional crises. Russia has said it could envisage working with such a force. Yuri Fedorov, deputy director of the PIR Centre, a Moscow think-tank, said by joining the global coalition against terrorism Putin was overtly rejecting Moscow's traditional Eurasianism and attendant love-hate relationship with the West.
"What happened last week shows that this (Eurasian) idea has been rejected. Russia has to all intents and purposes said, via its president, that 'we are with you in the West'."
"I deeply believe a new political climate is emerging which will facilitate the resolution of differences between Russia and NATO, and even overcome suspicions," he added.
According to Dmitry Trenin, deputy director of Moscow's Carnegie Centre, Russia is slowly coming to terms with its loss of status as a great imperial and Soviet empire.
"There is a very slow and painful realisation that the period of Russia as a universe apart, of Russia as a great power which needed no integration, which was on a par with the mightiest forces of the world as exemplified by the bi-polarity of the Cold War era, that Russia has come to an end."
Russian leaders were "on the way to adopting a new attitude to integration, which will be integrating Russia into something that is bigger than Russia. They are not there yet, and they will not be there for a long time. But, eventually, I think Russia is the last European empire coming home."
