No one has said everything would be finalised on the missile defence agreement when the two leaders met in Russia on Saturday, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino on board Air Force One.
“But we think the dialogue is headed in the right direction and that this meeting will be able to push that along even further,” she said.

Bush and Putin might sign a “strategic framework” agreement that would guide their successors, she said. “I think it will be broad,” she added. Bush was scheduled to have a private dinner late on Saturday with Putin and his successor, president-elect Dmitry Medvedev, at Putin’s seaside residence in Sochi.

The meetings will take place on “home territory” to match the hospitality shown by the Bush family during a trip by Putin to their summer compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, in 2007.