When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the NATO meeting in Geneva last week, she presented him with a little red "reset button" as a symbolic gesture of how the two nations should restart their relations.

However, the interpreter in the State Department had not been able to find the right Russian word for "restart", which is "perezagruzka". Instead, the button was marked "peregruzka" - which in fact means "overcharge", "congestion", "overburden", or "overload" - not exactly the new button of cooperation Clinton wanted to press with her Russian colleague. The friendly US gesture thus became an amusing incident in the Russian media, which called it a "symbolic mistake". The Moscow newspaper Kommersant declared, "Sergei Lavrov and Hillary Clinton pushed the wrong button."

President George W. Bush met for the first time with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at a summit in Slovenia in 2001. After that meeting, Mr Bush described Mr Putin as a man deeply committed to the best interests of his country: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul".

In the US presidential race last year, Senator John McCain mocked the American President's judgement and told his audiences: "When I look into Putin's eyes, I see three letters: K-G-B." I think McCain's assessment is clearly the more astute.

President Obama will soon build on the Clinton-Lavrov meeting in a search for a new US-Russia relationship, and there are numerous improvements that can be made on both sides. I urge the US president to uphold Russian responsibilities towards human rights, the rule of law and the freedom of the press. These are all essential for the development of Russia in the direction of a credible and safe democracy, which is so important for ensuring global peace.

And I say to President Obama: Don't for a minute allow yourself to be naive; when you look President Dmitry Medvedev in the eye, look carefully, and you will see: VLADIMIR PUTIN!

Ivar Amundsen
Director, Chechnya Peace Forum