MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- President Obama arrived in Moscow on Monday to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in an effort to "reset" the countries' relations.
The U.S. president said an initial meeting with the Russian leader was very productive and that he was confident of further progress.
The leaders will announce a new arms-control agreement at their joint press conference, a source close to the American side told CNN.
The agreement will limit the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy and the number of missiles they have have to launch them.
The deal -- which will not be legally binding -- will replace the START I agreement, which is nearly two decades old and expires December 5.
Medvedev said a new nuclear arms treaty was the top issue on the agenda. He was speaking in an interview with Italian media RAI and Corriere della Sera.
He said before the two-day summit that relations "have begun to revive" after a period of significant deterioration during the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush.
Russia has for years linked nuclear-arms reductions to the proposed U.S. missile defense system, which would have elements in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Medvedev opposes the missile defense shield. The Bush administration first raised the idea; the Obama administration is reviewing the plan and has not decided whether to proceed.
After eight years in which the Bush administration dismissed the need for arms control agreements, the Obama administration has taken a diametrically opposed approach, making what experts call the "follow-on" agreement to the expiring START I treaty a priority.
The U.S. source said the arms-control deal will reduce the number of warheads to below the limits of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads set in the 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions.
The joint statement also will set the number of missiles below 1,600 as designated in the START I agreement.
The deal instructs the Russian and U.S. negotiators to aim for a formal agreement by the end of the year.
The U.S and Russia have also agreed to jointly work toward accounting for their missing military personnel from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War, including Soviet military personnel unaccounted for in Afghanistan.
Obama spoke to the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta ahead of his trip, and denied the United States is primarily responsible for the worldwide economic crisis.
Many Russians, from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on down, blame the U.S. for starting the crisis. But Obama said it resulted from a "culture of irresponsibility regarding financial matters that took hold over a number of years in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
"We need to spend less time thinking about who is to blame," Obama said, "and more time working together to do what needs to be done to get all of our economies moving in the right direction."
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