Munich  - Russia's deputy premier said on Sunday that he was "cautiously optimistic" on relations with the US after talks with US Vice President Joe Biden in Munich - the highest-level meeting yet between a Russian official and the new US administration.

"We are cautiously optimistic but let's wait and see. We need to be realistic, (US President Barack) Obama's administration has been in power for a very limited time," Sergei Ivanov said at the end of the prestigious Munich Security Conference.

Russia and the US clashed bitterly in 2008 over the issues of NATO expansion, US plans to site a missile-defence system in Europe and Russia's August invasion of Georgia.

On Saturday Biden said that the US would consult Russia before making any move to build the missile shield, which US Democrats fear is over-priced and ineffective.

But Ivanov said that Russia would not be bought off by such an offer, saying, "we do not trade the way people do at bazaars."

Ivanov said that the Georgia issue was not mentioned in Munich because "it is all clear to everyone," with two breakaway Georgian regions recognized as independent by Russia but not the West.

That recognition is "inviolable," he said.

The comment came after Czech, Polish and NATO officials warned that the West should not return to business as usual with Russia as long as the country continues to build military bases in the two breakaway regions. dpa