Russia expects Obama visit despite “mini-crisis” in ties

President Barack Obama is likely to visit Russia in the first half of 2013 despite a “mini-crisis” in relations over U.S. moves to punish Russians accused of rights violations, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.Yury Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin, gave no further details. Obama and Putin have both signaled since winning presidential elections this year that they want an improvement in U.S.-Russian ties.Putin invited Obama to visit Russia after the U.S. leader’s election for a second presidential term last month, but relations between the former Cold War-era rivals remain uneasy. The Russian leader, who won election for a third term in March, has been angered by the passage by the U.S. Congress of the so-called Magnitsky Act at the same time as it ratified Russia’s entry to the World Trade Organization.The Magnitsky Act would require the United States to deny visas and freeze assets of Russian officials accused of involvement in the death in prison of anti-graft lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.“The Americans haven’t created a mini-crisis out of nothing. We are losing time for the normal development of relations,” Ushakov told a news briefing.