[M] OSCOW, Sept. 1 -- As European leaders today applauded President Clinton's decision to defer building a missile defense shield over the United States, Russian officials expressed satisfaction that their diplomatic campaign to galvanize opposition against the American program had apparently helped persuade Mr. Clinton.

A former Russian ambassador to the United States, Vladimir P. Lukin, who serves as deputy speaker of the parliament here, called Mr. Clinton's decision predictable and rational and said President Vladimir V. Putin had scored a temporary diplomatic victory. He cautioned, however, that the contentious international issue would return early next year.

European officials, caught between America's ambitions for missile defenses and the strong opposition from Russia and China, seemed mostly relieved. Across the continent, political leaders said Mr. Clinton's decision removed the issue from American presidential politics and created needed time for increasingly complex consultations and debate over missile threats and how to cope with them.

President Jacques Chirac of France, one of the most pointed critics of the American plan, was the only leader to issue a personal statement tonight. He said he had been informed of Mr. Clinton's decision by letter today, which he said he received with "great interest" given France's view that the project "risks undermining the strategic equilibrium and a return to the nuclear arms race."

Britain and Germany praised Mr. Clinton's decision. A spokesman in Berlin, Bela Anda, said the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had "understanding and respect" for the "wise decision," adding that Germany's "reservations about this project are well known."

Karsten D. Voigt, who coordinates German-American affairs in the Foreign ministry, said, the decision was welcome because it gave more time for consultations inside the alliance, where there have been some reservations against the substance of the national missile defense concept and also some complaints over the lack of time for consultations.

In London, Foreign Minister Robin Cook said Mr. Clinton had "taken careful account of the views" of America's allies and other international partners in pulling up short on the deployment of missile defenses, which would violate the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.

He said that "we look forward to continuing dialogue on this subject with the current" administration in Washington "and, in due course, with its successor, and with our NATO allies and others."

Mr. Putin, the leader who worked hardest this year at undermining American justification for going ahead with missile defenses, was conspicuously silent tonight in the face of what is seen here, for now, as a diplomatic victory of sorts. Still, Mr. Clinton's decision only puts off until next year the potential confrontation between Moscow and Washington over the future of longstanding arms control agreements.

The Russian leader leaves Moscow this weekend for visits to Japan and the United States.

Russia has said it will not agree to changes in the 1972 treaty, and has warned that an American decision to break the treaty will render all arms control agreements signed between Washington and Moscow during three decades null and void.

During the summer, Mr. Putin undertook a diplomatic campaign in Europe and Asia against the American plan to erect a missile shield over the United States. The shield would leave Europe outside the defensive umbrella and would perhaps incite China to build up its nuclear arsenal further, thus triggering further escalation in the arms race between India and Pakistan.

The Russian leader even flew to North Korea and secured an as yet unelaborated promise from Kim Jong Il, the country's leader, to give up its long-range missile program in return for Western space-launch assistance for North Korean satellites.

In presenting this proposal to the large industrial nations at a July summit meeting in Okinawa, Mr. Putin sought to refute the American assertion that North Korea's missile program poses such an acute threat to the United States that early deployment of missile defenses is warranted.

Moreover, a budding rapprochement between North and South Korea, whose leaders met this summer for the first time since the Korean War, further deflated any sense of imminent danger from North Korea.

Mr. Lukin, the former Russian ambassador to the United States, said he believed that Mr. Clinton had made his decision based exclusively on domestic political considerations.

Any decision by Mr. Clinton would have been reassessed as soon as a new administration takes over anyway, he said, and he did not want to do anything that would be detrimental to the Democratic Party, like making compromises with Moscow that would subject Vice President Al Gore to political attacks during the presidential campaign.

As it was, the Republican presidential candidate, George W. Bush, criticized the Clinton-Gore record as failing to strengthen America's defenses, and said that if he was elected president, he would proceed with a missile defense system at the earliest possible date.

Mr. Putin was able to capitalize on serious concerns in Europe and Asia that the United States was creating "an unequal security system" between itself, its NATO allies and other major powers like Russia and China, Mr. Lukin said.

"It has unified everyone against the United States, including your allies," he said.

Still, Mr. Lukin added that it would be "unwise for Mr. Putin to celebrate any victory" because today's decision "is only temporary and is connected with internal politics in the United States." As of January, he said, a new American president will face substantial political pressure to deploy a missile defense system, if further testing proves the system viable.

The timing of Mr. Clinton's announcement may spare him some criticism from world leaders assembling at the United Nations next week for a global summit meeting.

China's president, Jiang Zemin, was said to be preparing to express Beijing's opposition to the American missile defense plan in a speech at the summit meeting, according to a senior diplomat in the Chinese capital.

Certain nations are still seeking so-called absolute security for themselves and are speeding up the development and deployment of advanced antimissile systems, a senior Chinese diplomat told reporters in Beijing on Thursday. Mr. Jiang had been expected to assert that American missile defenses would seriously undermine the positive trend in international disarmament efforts.

The American defense system poses particularly difficult decisions for European countries like Britain and Denmark whose territories might be needed to enhance American radar capabilities to shoot down incoming missiles from countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

In London last month, a House of Commons foreign affairs committee urged the government to encourage Washington to address the nuclear threat from rogue states by means other than the proposed missile shield, which would not be able to stop a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon delivered in a suitcase or on a ship, or other than by missile. The committee said it was not convinced that the plan was an appropriate response to potential threats.

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