Bush looking forward to final meeting with Putin

By Susan Cornwell

KIEV (Reuters) - President Bush said on Tuesday he was looking forward to his last official meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a few days, saying the Kremlin chief had proved a strong leader and "I like him."

Bush, who like Putin is in the twilight of his presidency, famously declared after his first encounter with the Russian leader in 2001 that he trusted him after gaining a "sense of his soul."

Critics later derided that statement as naive as Putin took steps they said curbed democratic freedoms in Russia.

On Tuesday, Bush said nothing about trust, but defended his policy of engaging Putin, saying it was important to the world that the United States had a working relationship with Russia.

"This will be my last chance to visit with him face to face," Bush, speaking alongside Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, said of his talks this weekend at the Kremlin leader's Black Sea villa in the resort of Sochi.

The encounter will take place after both men attend the NATO summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

"I've worked with him for eight years. We've had a very interesting relationship. I like him. He's a person that, you know, has been a strong leader for Russia."

Bush leaves office next January. Putin's protege, Dmitry Medvedev, takes over in May as Russian president and Putin becomes prime minister.

"My view all along has been that it's in our interests, Ukrainian interests, European interests, to be able to have a working relationship with Russia, and I've had that," Bush said.

"This will be a chance to say I appreciate being able to work together and to be able to try to find some common interests in the waning days of his presidency."

The visit to Sochi, which last year won the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics thanks largely to Putin's lobbying, is aimed at repairing U.S.-Russian ties.

These have become strained over plans to deploy a U.S. missile defense system in Europe, Western support for Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia and the NATO ambitions of ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia.

U.S. officials say Bush and Putin hope to agree on a "strategic framework" of relations to bequeath to successors. Bush said Tuesday he hoped for breakthroughs on the missile shield that Russia sees as a threat.

But with Yushchenko seated at his side, Bush emphasized he was contemplating no bargaining in terms of Ukraine's interests. There would be no "tradeoffs", he said, with Putin between the missile defense project and U.S. support for allowing the two ex-Soviet states to start moves to join the NATO club.