Obama's Russia visit may warm up ties

Ahead of US President Barack Obama's maiden three-day Russia visit beginning next week, his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev has said the bilateral relations between the two former foes have reached Cold War levels.

"Unfortunately, relations between our two countries have worsened over these last years. A crisis of confidence, lack of action, unwillingness to take any new steps -- call it what you will, but the fact remains that, although our countries' presidents had a good personal rapport, Russian-US relations declined to a level practically on a par with the Cold War era," Medvedev said in his video blog posted on the Kremlin website.

Welcoming the Obama administration's willingness to press the "reset" button to change the situation, Medvedev expressed readiness to respond accordingly.

"The new administration headed by President Obama is showing its willingness to change the situation and build more effective, reliable, and ultimately more modern relations. We are ready to play our part," the president stated.

He said there are problems of international security like the fight against terrorism, extremism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and drugs trafficking which the two nuclear superpowers simply cannot resolve on their own, acting unilaterally.