In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. President Bush received steadfast claims of support from Putin. At the time, bound by a common enemy, relations between the countries were as strong as almost never before.

Yet ever since the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Moscow has distanced itself from Washington; with its emergence as an energy superpower and what it sees as NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe, the Russian bear is growling back and increasingly loud.

Russia, a veto-holding member of the U.N. Security Council, backed two sets of limited U.N. sanctions against Iran but has resisted a third, tougher round of measures advocated by Washington.

Last week, Putin -- in what Iranian commentators hailed as a historic sign of support -- visited Tehran to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other leaders of the Caspian Sea region. The visit came as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said the world could not stand by and allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, with Bush making references to World War III if Iran continued to defy international calls to stop its uranium enrichment program.

The West believes Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a coverup to secretly make nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

Washington has refused to rule out military action against Iran, and Putin, as if to torpedo those threats, handed Tehran an important security guarantee at the Caspian Sea leaders summit when he said that no Caspian government would allow its territories be used for a military attack against another Caspian state. The summit also marked the first time a Kremlin leader visited the Iranian capital since World War II, and it surfaced that Putin had invited Ahmadinejad to Moscow in return (that would also be a first).

While other European nations have spoken out against a U.S. first strike against Iran, the Caspian security guarantee directly undermines that measure, further fueling the tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Another issue where both powers are at loggerheads is the plan of a U.S. anti-missile system in Eastern Europe. Washington wants to station 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic to defend Europe and the United States against nuclear attacks from the likes of North Korea and Iran, a plan Moscow feels threatens its own security.

Putin and Bush telephoned each other earlier this week, yet a resolution to the controversy seems not in sight.

The same is true for a conflict that has been smoldering below the surface but could ignite any time. The breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo is pushing for independence, yet Serbia, backed almost exclusively by Moscow, is standing in the way of any progress on the issue.

Efforts to resolve Kosovo's status have culminated in U.N.-led compromise talks based on a proposal drafted by U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland.

The so-called Ahtisaari plan would have stipulated broad independence for Kosovo (without explicitly naming the devil) and secured rights and protection for the Serb minority living in the province.

However, talks based on the Ahtisaari plan between Belgrade and Pristina, observed by the larger Contact Group -- comprising the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia -- earlier this year ended without result.

Several EU and G8 summits have failed to make any headway on Kosovo, and observers expect the conflict between Russia and the United States over the Serbian province's status to become nasty by the end of the year.

"At some point in time -- sooner rather than later -- you've got to say: 'Enough is enough. Kosovo is independent,' and that's the position we've taken," Bush said in June during a visit to Albania.

Observers are worried that an ongoing Kosovo row carries negative implications for the entire Balkans.

"Solving the Kosovo issue is key to stability and security in the Balkans," a senior Western diplomat said earlier this year in Berlin. "If Kosovo becomes unstable, then things in Macedonia may unravel, and so on. ... Kosovo must not become a frozen conflict."

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