The Kremlin signaled a fundamental foreign policy shift today, acknowledging that two former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Georgia, are no longer part of the Russian orbit.

Days before a potentially tense summit meeting between Kremlin chief Vladimr Putin and President Bush, the Russian foreign minister said in an interview broadcast Sunday that Moscow views the two former republics "as absolutely sovereign, absolutely equal states in the new geopolitical architecture." The policy change was sure to be welcomed by the Bush White House given that Russia had angrily accused the United States of involvement in recent political turmoil in both countries that produced new, Western-leaning governments. In a clear step away from confrontation, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov now said that the Kremlin only required openness from the former republics and other countries as they formulate policy and develop relations. Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has struggled to maintain influence with the former republics -- now independent countries -- that ringed the one-time communist superpower. In the intervening years, the Kremlin has relied on a tortured foreign policy concept under which the former republics were known as the "near abroad," which signaled that Russia did not view them as absolutely sovereign.