"Look, it's a tricky world out there," said Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, when asked in a briefing on Wednesday if Mr. Bush was going on a "diplomatically tricky" trip that could offend Mr. Putin and also the Baltic leaders, two of whom are boycotting Mr. Putin's invitation to the celebration in Red Square on Monday.

Mr. Hadley added that Mr. Bush was going "with a vision and a set of principles" that would "provide the framework by which various issues of the day can be resolved."

Despite such optimistic words, administration officials make no secret of their frustrations with Russia and especially Mr. Putin, whose relationship with Mr. Bush has deteriorated since their first meeting in June 2001, when Mr. Bush said he had looked the Russian leader in the eye and gotten a sense of his soul.

"Whatever euphoria might have been there has long since dissipated, and it's now a businesslike relationship," said Coit Blacker, the director of the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, a former Russia specialist for the Clinton administration's National Security Council and a friend of Ms. Rice.

Although Mr. Hadley said Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin had a "rapport" and brushed off a suggestion that the relationship was strained, other administration officials trace problems back to the fall of 2003, when Mr. Putin jailed the founder of Russia's biggest oil company and Ms. Rice, a Russia specialist who was then the national security adviser, told Mr. Bush that she had concerns about the Russian leader he called his friend.

The main substance of Mr. Bush's five-day trip, which includes a brief overnight stop to speak at an American World War II cemetery in the Netherlands, will occur in a meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin at the Russian presidential dacha outside Moscow.

Administration officials said that Mr. Bush was likely to press Mr. Putin again about what Washington considers Russian retreats on the road to democracy, but that he was not expected to do so publicly -- as he did during an awkward news conference with Mr. Putin in February in Slovakia that the White House does not want to repeat.