By Mark Mardell in Moscow BBC Chief Political Correspondent

The meeting was cordial, but frank

As the two men met for the cameras, it could have been a parody of a romantic movie.

From one side of the silver birch woods Mr Blair walked nonchalantly. From the other, Mr Putin strode purposefully.

They met, shook hands, clapped elbows and hugged.

And that was about as matey as it got.

Call it plain speaking, call it frank, but certainly there was no meeting of minds.

They met inside President Putin's architecturally-challenged yellow and white coloured mansion in the woods.

The woods themselves are surrounded with other pastel coloured mansions, elaborate conservatories growing on them like carbuncles.

This must surely be the nouveau rich part of Moscow.

Rigmarole

On the plane on the way over Mr Blair had indicated he was going to be blunt and discover whether there was the basis for what he called a 'strategic relationship' between the UK, the US and Russia.

Blair-Putin tension on sanctions Click for full story

In his mind that means countries opposed to the war moving on, accepting the reality on the ground, and not repeating what he calls the rigmarole of the UN over the second resolution.

But he got none of this from President Putin who talked of the need to verify the elimination of weapons of mass destruction he obviously doesn't believe in, before sanctions against Iraq can be lifted.

What's more it must be done by UN weapons inspectors guarded by blue-helmeted UN troops, in what he calls "lawless Iraq".

Mocked

The Russian leader has an impish sense of humour.

He noted Mr Blair's vision of a uni-polar world extended not only to the UK, US, Europe and Russia, but during a recent interview, it also included China as well.

He pungently mocked the idea of weapons of mass destruction, asking "do they exist? Is Saddam underground, sitting on cases of weapons waiting to blow up thousands of people?"

Afterwards he insisted he wasn't being ironic, but if the world really faced such a severe threat before the war, it had to be dealt with beyond all doubt now.

Frantic

All this boils down to the rest of the world's relationship with the United States.

The trouble is Mr Blair thinks Russia and France are being quixotically impractical, opposing the will of the world's only hyper power

Mr Blair is growing ever more frantic in his insistence that there's a grave danger of a new cold war, an anti-American axis.

His view is the world should listen to the US on their serious strategic concerns, and they will listen back on things such as the environment and the Middle East.

President Putin's assessment was rather different.

Impractical

He agreed with Mr Blair that there should be a uni-polar world, but one decided by democratic agreement, not the wishes of one country that everyone else has to follow.

The trouble is Mr Blair thinks Russia and France are being quixotically impractical, opposing the will of the world's only hyper power.

Whereas they see his view as pragmatism gone mad, neither moral nor democratic.

The war in Iraq was a gulf war indeed, opening up a gulf in the western alliance, that's now as wide as ever.