Berlin  - Moscow will not let itself be drawn into a confrontation with the West, a senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday, one day before a top-level Russian-German meeting.

"We haven't broken off dialogue. We haven't pulled back the hand (of friendship)," ambassador to Berlin, Vladimir Kotenyev, said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"We favour cooperation at international level with all players. Russia is not going to let itself be drawn into a confrontation."

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel was set to meet with Russian leaders on Thursday in St Petersburg, Russia for annual talks.

Western nations have suspended many of their consultations with Russia in NATO, the Group of Eight (G8) and in European Union panels in protest at Russia's August seizure of buffer zones in Georgia.

Merkel is expected to repeat her insistence that the troops withdraw back into two breakaway territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where Russians were deployed before the war.

Kotenyev said the attitude of Germany and other "old" EU members on the Caucasus war was disappointing. He said they should not have backed "biased countries like Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and others" which had supported Georgia.

He said Russia would discuss with Merkel a proposal for an independent study into who began the war. (dpa)