Moscow wants to buy a French-built helicopter carrier, a move that would mark an unprecedented transfer of naval technology from a NATO power. French officials confirmed the sale may come up at a working dinner Thursday.

Meanwhile, the official agenda of Friday's meeting of ministers reflects Putin's goal of finding more European partners to buy into two pipelines to hook up Western power stations to Russian gas fields.

Paris has said it is willing to help in both of these domains, sparking concern among its European Union partners in Central and Eastern Europe, who worry that Moscow's power and confidence are once more on the rise.

The arrival in St Petersburg this week of the Mistral, a French naval command vessel of the class that Putin hopes to buy, has increased fears that Russia is seeking means to project power beyond its borders.

The Mistral is a 21,000-tonne, 200-metre (650-foot) amphibious assault ship that can carry heavy-lift helicopters, landing craft, tanks and up to 900 commandos. It is the second largest vessel in the French fleet.

In August, Russia said it would end a long-standing policy of building its own warships and buy a copy of the French ship. Russia could also build four more identical ships under licence from the French.

Not since World War II will any Atlantic power have conducted such an important military deal with Moscow, and Russia's neighbours in the former Soviet satellite states are nervous about its ambitions.

On Wednesday, Lithuania joined fellow EU and NATO members Latvia and Estonia in expressing concern. All three Baltic neighbours found freedom in 1991 on the break-up of the Soviet Union and have tense relations with Moscow.

Lithuanian Foreign ministry spokesman Rolandas Kacinskas said the Baltics had asked Paris to make clear "exactly what kind of equipment it plans to sell and what it can be used for."

Another country likely to feel abused by France cosying up to Russia is Georgia, the EU and NATO candidate state in the Caucasus that fought and lost a short but fierce war last year with Russia over two breakaway regions.

Georgian expatriates and sympathisers plan to demonstrate in Paris during Putin's two day visit, during which he will meet senior ministers and energy executives as well as his counterpart Francois Fillon.

"France has broken a taboo that has been inviolable since the creation of the Atlantic Alliance," declared philosopher Andre Glucksman in an editorial for the daily Le Monde attacking the proposed warship sale.

"In supplying Putin with weapons for a rapid amphibious assault in Georgia, the Crimea, even the Baltic states, our message is clear: Go ahead!" he said.

The other subject on the table will also raise eyebrows in Eastern Europe, which will be bypassed by two large pipelines under the Baltic and Black seas while the Western allies increase their reliance on Russian gas.

Russia's planned North Stream and South Stream pipelines will cut Ukraine, a West-leaning former Soviet republic with an outstanding territorial dispute with Moscow over Crimea and its naval bases, out of the energy loop.

Putin is to meet business executives and ministers on Friday in Rambouillet, outside Paris, to discuss new investment partnerships with French giants EDF and GDF-Suez on both of these new pipeline routes.

French officials said talks were already under way between the firms and the Russian oil and gas conglomerate Gazprom. Notably, EDF may take a 10 percent stake in South Stream alongside Gazprom and Italy's ENI.

In doing so, the firm would be entering into competition with a European pipeline project, Nabucco, that aims to bring gas directly from ex-Soviet central Asia through Turkey and into southeast Europe, bypassing Russia.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, French officials denied that they were backing down in the face of Russian pressure, insisting that a diverse range of pipeline options would only increase European energy security.

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