It is a delicate assignment for Bush. He will pay tribute to Russia's enormous sacrifice -- 27 million soldiers and civilians killed -- and at the same time reach out to nations that fell under Moscow's heel.
The president will open the trip in Riga, Latvia, where he will meet on Saturday with the leaders of Baltic nations that were under Soviet rule for nearly five decades. The leaders of Lithuania and Estonia have refused to attend the Moscow ceremony, because of Russia's unwillingness to denounce the Soviet annexation of their countries.
At a briefing for reporters, Hadley said a Soviet-era branch of the parliament in 1989 had renounced the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the 1939 agreement that Soviet leader Josef Stalin made with Nazi Germany to divide Eastern Europe between the two powers.
''Obviously it would be an appropriate thing for Russia, now having emerged out of the Soviet Union, to do the same thing," Hadley said. He added that Bush's emphasis would be to look forward, rather than backward, ''and to focus on what now ties us together, that in fact Europe now is moving toward a Europe whole, free and at peace."
In a letter to Latvia, Bush acknowledged that the liberation of Europe from the Nazis also marked the beginning of the long Soviet occupation of the Baltics. But the president stopped short of assigning blame to Russia.
''During this trip, I will mark the sacrifice of America and many other nations in defeating Nazism," Bush wrote to President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia. ''In Western Europe, the end of World War II meant liberation. In Central and Eastern Europe, the war also marked the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and the imposition of communism."
Asked if Bush considered this a particularly difficult trip in terms of its diplomacy, Hadley said, ''Look, it's a tricky world out there. There are a lot of challenges the world over." Hadley said the trip was to celebrate the defeat of fascism and Nazism and the schedule wasn't intentionally designed ''to send any message to Russia."
Yet Bush's emphasis on spreading freedom and democracy will invite comparisons with Putin's quashing of dissent and consolidation of power.
