The European commission can only start negotiations when all 25 EU member states have given it a mandate to do so. Poland - to the exasperation of other EU governments - became the first new member state to use its veto to block talks with a third country.
Poland's veto came in response to a Russian ban on its meat products. Russian authorities accuse Polish producers of violating hygiene laws and smuggling, although Moscow says there is no problem with the quality of Polish produce itself.

Warsaw retorts that the import ban was punishment for its embrace of the west and turning its back on its former imperial master.

The Polish veto was an embarrassing setback for the EU as it seeks agreement with Russia - its biggest energy supplier - over the security of future oil and gas supplies, and on democracy and human rights.

"Of course it would be better not to have it (the Polish veto) but we are going to keep on working," the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said as he arrived at the summit. "The situation will be overcome."

Energy is the thorniest issue between the EU and Russia. With the EU increasingly dependent on oil and gas from Russia, European governments want to ensure security of access and open up Russian oil and gas deposits and export pipelines to European companies.

"Energy is the key and the most difficult issue in EU-Russia relations, and there can be no immediate breakthrough at the summit. Talks may drag on for years," Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, told the Associated Press.

Russia and 50 other countries have signed the so-called Energy Charter, a treaty that took effect in 1998, setting out terms for trading and transporting energy across the Eurasian landmass. Moscow will not ratify it nor conclude a transit protocol with the EU that would force Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, to surrender its monopoly on transporting gas from Turkmenistan.

"It's out of the question that Russia will submit to EU pressure to ratify the charter," Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, told The Associated Press.

The EU sees the PCA as a way of getting the charter's language into a treaty, without requiring Russian ratification of the original Energy Charter.

Apart from energy, negotiations for a new partnership accord promise to be lengthy. The two sides have identified four key sectors - economic, justice, external security and research matters - as areas for closer cooperation.

On human rights, Russian officials said if EU chiefs challenged Mr Putin over his record he would counter by pointing to the treatment of ethnic Russians in new EU members Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Moscow says they suffer discrimination.

The death of Alexander Litvinenko in London - three weeks after the former KGB agent and fierce Putin critic apparently ingested a mysterious poison - also hung over the Helsinki summit.

The Finnish prime minister, Matti Vanhanen, whose country holds the EU presidency, expressed sympathy to Mr Litvinenko's family but declined to say whether he would press Mr Putin about the death.

Russia has rejected claims from Mr Litvinenko's friends it had a hand in the poisoning. A Kremlin spokesman said Mr Litvinenko's death was "a tragedy."

The 17 defendants are accused of membership in an alleged militant group called Islamic Jamaat, and are charged with crimes including terrorism, illegal weapons possession and inciting religious hatred, the prosecutor general's office said Thursday.

Prosecutors have submitted the case to Tatarstan's Supreme Court, meaning it could go to trial soon.

No attacks took place during Kazan's millennium celebrations.

The group was active in four cities in the traditionally Muslim region - Naberezhniye Chelny, Aznakayevo, Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk - and recruited six minors to carry out terrorist attacks.

The six minors were sentenced during the summer. Five of them who were tried together were convicted in August of involvement in a terrorist conspiracy and each was sentenced to more than five years in prison.

During the minors' trial, rights activists called the case part of a pattern of security services' harassment of pious Muslim believers in Russia, in an atmosphere of repression fed by the Russian war against Islamic militants and separatists in Chechnya.

Ilgam Gumerov, who was one of the 17 suspects listed in Thursday's statement and has been described by authorities as the alleged group's leader, said during the minors' trial that the case was fabricated and that statements he made were induced by torture.

He said jailers had handcuffed him to his cell for two days, deprived him of food and drink and demanded he sign confessions.

With Russia's official population of 145 million, a figure of 60,000 suicides corresponds to 41 per 100,000 people.

The head of the Serbsky National Research Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry said cardiac diseases are the most common cause of death in the country, followed by suicides, cancer and car accidents.

She said about 90% of suicides result from psychological disorders.

Boris Polozhy, a department head with the Serbsky Center, said earlier said official statistics show 36.1 cases of suicide for every 100,000 people in Russia.

He said the most problematic regions in Russia were the Koryak Autonomous District (with 133.5 suicides per 100,000 people), the republic of Komi (110.3), the republic of Altai (101.9) and the Nenets Autonomous Area (95.7).

Polozhny added that the situation was much better in republics of the North Caucasus, with 1.1 registered suicide cases per 100,000 people in Ingushetia, 3.2 in Daghestan, and 4.8 in North Ossetia.

Moscow and St. Petersburg lose 11 and 17.8 people per 100,000 to suicides each year, respectively, according to official data.

The taxes cost EU airlines 330 million euros (432 million dollars) in 2006, the European Commission said in a statement, adding that the deal would be signed later Friday.

Both Russian and EU officials minimised the significance of a Polish veto on the start of EU negotiations for a new partnership agreement with Moscow that remains in force despite frantic last-minute diplomatic efforts.

The veto "can be overcome," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said ahead of the summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and EU leaders in the House of Estates palace in central Helsinki.

"There were alarmist forecasts. These were not justified," a source from the Russian delegation said after the summit.

"The EU confirmed its intention to start negotiations sooner or later and preferably sooner," the source said.

Talks on a new accord to replace the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Brussels and Moscow, which formally runs out next year but can be extended, were meant to be central to the summit.

Poland's veto was prompted by a Russian ban on Polish meat and plant imports on food safety grounds and Moscow's refusal to ratify the Energy Charter Treaty, an international agreement on energy investment and transport.

But, speaking on the eve of the summit, Putin defended Russia's ban as a "technical problem" not linked to "political tricks" and called for talks to resolve the issue.

The dispute with Poland has highlighted divisions within the European Union on policy towards Russia, which accounts for around a third of EU energy imports and is a major market for European companies.

In an apparent counter to the Polish veto, Russia has stressed concerns about the standards of EU meat imports as a whole after swine fever outbreaks in Bulgaria and Romania, which are set to join the EU in January.

"We have some phytosanitary problems with Romania and Bulgaria. We hope these problems will be solved before they join the EU," said Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin.

The EU's enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said in an interview with Finnish television on Thursday that Russia's food safety concerns were part of "a political game" intended "to put pressure on the EU".

EU meat exports to Russia are worth around 1.7 billion euros (2.2 billion dollars) per year and EU officials said earlier that restrictions on Bulgaria and Romania are already in place.

At the summit, Putin also repeated Russia's refusal to ratify the Energy Charter Treaty, which Moscow signed in 1994, in spite of EU calls for its adoption.

"At the same time, we support the basic principles of the charter and we are ready to discuss the inclusion of these principles of this charter in a future agreement," the Russian delegation source said.

Russia faced further pressure on the sidelines of the summit after Alexander Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service, died from suspected poisoning in London late on Thursday.

Litvinenko was a Kremlin critic and some of his friends have accused Russia of being behind the killing. Russian secret services have denied any involvement.

"Death is always a tragedy and there is nothing to be added to that. Now the case will be investigated by relevant British authorities," Peskov said.

"We hope that those who did this will be brought to justice," he added.

EU and Russian leaders also met on Friday with prime ministers Geir Haarde of Iceland and Jens Stoltenberg of Norway for talks on cooperation in northern Europe.

Summit participants were expected to discuss other international issues such as the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea, tensions in the Middle East and a diplomatic crisis between Georgia and Russia.