According to local radio ``Echo Moskvy'', Clinton's plea came during his 30-minute meeting with Yeltsin. Expressing American concern over arms race between India and Pakistan in the backdrop of nuclear rivalry in South Asia, close to the Russian borders, Clinton warned that it could lead to a ``direct war'' between the two nuclear super powers.

India remains the biggest customer of Russian arms in the world and Indian orders to the tune of two billion (US) dollars annually have a vital importance for the cash-strapped Russian economy.

According to the Russian Defence sources, Washington is greatly alarmed at the Delhi-Moscow negotiations for the development of an advanced Air-Defence system capable of protecting India from the ``punitive'' missile strikessimilar to the recent US attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan.

In the grip of political storm each in his own country, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and US President Bill Clinton today bear-hugged in the former's study to inaugurate, what promises to be, a summit of uncertain terms.

The first agreement to trickle out was a joint pledge to eliminate some stockpiles of plutonium taken from dismantled missile warheads.

With Russia reeling from a political and economic crisis, Yeltsin formally welcomed Clinton outside the Kremlin after wreath-laying at Moscow's tomb of the unknown soldier.

Republican senator Pete Domenici who flew here with Clinton, told a media person today that the two Presidents would sign tomorrow an agreement to get rid of about 50 metric tons of plutonium on each side and break down the weapons material so it cannot be used for military purposes.

A draft of the leaders' joint statement said the plutonium would be withdrawn in stages, with financing arrangements to be set by year'send.

The draft said: Measures to manage and reduce such stockpiles are an essential element of irreversible arms reduction efforts and necessary to ensure that these materials do not become a proliferation risk.

Earlier, Viktor Chernomyrdin, acting prime minister, met Clinton and his wife, Hillary, at the Moscow airport.

Hoping to get a boost from summiteering, and doing his bit as an ambassador of West's free market, Clinton pledged continued US support for Russia as long as its leaders ``stay on the path of reform'' and do not revert to the Communist ways of the past.

With a message of support but no financial help, the US President urged Russians to reject the ``failed policies of the past'' in coping with their current economic crisis.

``Given the facts before you, I have to tell you that I do not believe there are any painless solutions,'' Clinton told a new generation of Russian leaders at Moscow state university of international relations.

He repeatedly said that Russia must play by therules of international commerce.

With Russia's economic turmoil throwing the summit agenda into uncertainty, Clinton addressed the crisis with frankness, but offered no specific ideas on how the infant democracy could weather the tailspin of its currency.

Earlier, at the start of their meeting, Yeltsin presented Clinton with a loaf of salted bread, a traditional East European symbol of welcome. Clinton pushed at the bread with the heel of his hand, and it sprang back up. ``Amazing, kind of like you,'' Clinton told his embattled host.