The Rice touch in Russia

SECRETARY OF State Condoleezza Rice performed with near-perfect pitch in her recent Moscow visit, at least to the degree that it can be judged by her public diplomacy. She was reassuring where she needed to be -- on questions of geopolitical rivalry -- and firm where Russian democrats want her to be -- on the democratic deficit in President Vladimir Putin's style of governance.

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Rice was in Moscow Tuesday and yesterday to prepare for President Bush's visit to Russia May 9 on the 60th anniversary of the World War II Allied victory in Europe. It has been an open secret that Putin was bristling over a lecture on democracy he got from Bush when the two met in Bratislava, Slovakia, in February. Rice could hardly depart from Bush's line on Putin's excessive concentration of power, but she found tactful ways to take the side of Russia's democratic forces without sounding hostile to Russian interests.

On issues such as the Kremlin's barbaric war against Chechnya, the tactful evasions of Rice and Bush are morally indefensible and strategically foolish. Nevertheless, the approach Rice has taken of cooperation speckled with constructive criticism suits the mutual interests of the United States and Russia.

One of the subjects Rice discussed in her meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was a crucial program to secure and destroy nuclear weapons and fissile material in Russia. US-Russian cooperation is also indispensable for nurturing Ukraine's nascent democracy, as well as those in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. In Moscow, Rice spoke tellingly of the US interest in Russian policies that increase the amount of oil and gas available to the international market. And the Kremlin has a key role to play in preventing the advent of new nuclear weapons states.

Sagely, Rice said in answering questions from callers to Radio Ekho Moskvy, one of Russia's few independent broadcasting outlets, that Russia is ''a partner in the war on terror and the battle against weapons of mass destruction." And she went on to say, ''Russia is our strategic partner in the solution of regional problems such as the Balkan question or the Middle East problems." This is a formulation that Russians need to hear from the person who speaks for the US president. Equally apt was her answer to a question about US influence in the so-called velvet revolutions in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine. ''We actually see the situation not as a game where someone loses and someone wins but as a game where everybody can win," she said.

It will be a good thing if Bush, during his visit next month to Russia, finds a similar way of speaking to the Russian populace about what Rice called ''a game with no losers."