DANIEL SCHORR reporting: It was a historic victory, the triumph of Hitler's forces that cost 27      million lives of Stalin's subjects.  It was a historic victory, but 60      years later finds it clouded in ambiguity that President Bush has to      contend with on this, the most delicate of trips that he is yet      undertaking.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: NPR's senior news analyst Daniel Schorr.</s>SCHORR: Leaders of 56 countries will be on hand in Red Square, but not      the leaders of the Baltic states Lithuania and Estonia.  They were not      liberated in 1945, but only exchanged one occupation for another.  Mr.      Bush wrote their presidents that he could understand their decision to      stay away given the painful history.  And so he arranged to meet them in      Riga, the Latvian capital, and also tack on a visit to the former Soviet      Republic of Georgia on his way home.  The Russians protested against      these visits, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waved them off.</s>SCHORR: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has called the breakup of the      Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,      probably is not enchanted with the warm hand of friendship that Mr. Bush      has extended to the former Soviet states.  But then Mr. Bush probably is      not enchanted with the Russian president's refusal to denounce the 1939      Hitler-Stalin pact that opened the way to the annexation of the Baltic      states and the partition of Poland.  Actually, President Mikhail      Gorbachev, the leader of the dying Soviet Union, did denounce the      Hitler-Stalin pact.  But Putin dismissed that as merely an effort to      ensure Russia's security on its western border.</s>SCHORR: So there's not likely to be a lot of soulful gazing into each other's      eyes as President Bush and Putin witness the commemoration from Lenin's      Tomb in Red Square.  But as one official put it, Mr. Bush will try to      avoid overt friction by concentrating on the tasks that lie ahead in the      21st century. This is Daniel Schorr.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: It's 18 minutes past the hour.
On Monday, President Bush will attend a victory celebration in Moscow's Red Square that Russian President Vladimir Putin is staging on the day Russians regard as the V-E Day anniversary. Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr notes that the occasion may be marked by tension between the two world leaders over President Bush's warm support for the Baltic states, where the V-E Day anniversary is a reminder of the birth of the Soviet empire.