Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, center, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, left, and Strategic Missile Forces Chief Nikolai Solovtsov, right, talk at a nuclear missile base in Teikovo, Russia Thursday, May 15, 2008. Russia's new president has promised the kind of democratic reforms Washington called for during predecessor Vladimir Putin's tenure. And all the candidates to succeed U.S. President George W. Bush have promised a break from a foreign policy that Moscow has bitterly criticized. But there is scant optimism that the changes in leadership in Moscow and Washington will shift the downward momentum in relations between the two nuclear powers.