MOSCOW, Sept. 25 -- After Russia's most reputable polling agency reported last month that support for President Vladimir Putin's war in Chechnya had fallen to 28 percent, the messengers were targeted by a state-ordered purge. Soon the center's founder and research team were out, replaced by a 29-year-old who once campaigned for Putin's political party.

"I've heard that we provide data they might dislike, that public opinion has to look better for the government than the way we represent it," lamented Yuri Levada, who created the government-owned All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion, which for 15 years until last month enjoyed unusual autonomy to put out numbers that often irritated the Kremlin.

Putin called it a simple financial dispute, but many reformers and political analysts saw it as emblematic of a broader rollback of democratic gains of the post-Soviet period. In the past few months alone, the last independent national television network was shut down, new rules drastically restricting political coverage were imposed on surviving news organizations, challengers to the Kremlin favorite in next month's election in Chechnya were driven out of the race and a spate of investigations were launched against an oil tycoon who funded rival political parties.

Few if any of these issues will take a prominent place on the agenda when Putin meets President Bush at Camp David for a summit Friday and Saturday, according to officials from both governments. In the two years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Putin has positioned himself as a chief ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism and, while he disagreed with Bush on the invasion of Iraq, the Russian president still occupies a special place in the White House's hierarchy of foreign friends...