WASHINGTON, October 7, 2009 (AFP) - Hillary Clinton, set to make her first visit to Moscow next week as US secretary of state, on Wednesday rapped Russia's failure to bring to justice the killers of journalists and rights activists.

The State Department said Clinton, who issued the critical statement on the third anniversary of the unsolved slaying of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, would raise US concerns about such violence with her Russian interlocutors.

Analyst Sarah Mendelson said meanwhile that President Barack Obama's administration faces a hurdle to its goal of resetting ties with Russia because of what she called a "culture of impunity."

In her statement, Clinton expressed alarm about a trend in which she said the killers of only one of 18 journalists murdered in Russia since 2000 have been convicted.

She mentioned the unsolved case of Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta newspaper, who was shot outside her apartment building on October 7, 2006, and that of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine who was gunned down outside his Moscow office on July 9, 2004.

She also mentioned the unsolved murder of Natalya Estemirova, a 50-year-old human rights activist, was shot dead after being kidnapped from outside her home in the Chechen capital Grozny on July 15.

"The failure to bring to justice the killers of these journalists undermines efforts to strengthen the rule of law, improve government accountability, and combat corruption," Clinton said.

Her spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters that Clinton would visit Russia on October 13 and 14, with talks planned in Moscow with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and probably President Dmitry Medvedev.

He did not rule out a visit to another city.

Philip Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, expected Clinton to discuss human rights during her trip in addition to the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, US-Russian nuclear arms reductions, missile defense, and energy issues.

"The secretary... will talk about human rights, the environment in Russia... our ongoing concern about violence against activists, our ongoing concern about intimidation of the news media," Crowley told reporters.

Crowley also expected Clinton to follow up efforts to promote cultural exchanges promised during President Barack Obama's July summit in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Medvedev.

Mendelson, a human rights specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who attended civil society gatherings on the sidelines of the summit, says the unsolved murders set limits on a new relationship.

"The Obama administration can work to reset the relationship but there's a culture of impunity," she told AFP. "It's very hard to talk seriously about a reset as long as that happens."

Such murders are an international issue because some are being carried out in European capitals, not just in Russia, she said.

On another practical level, it is difficult for the United States and Europe to enjoy full cooperation with Russia on counter-terrorism, if the Russian security and police forces remain "intensely corrupt," she said.

"It's that kind of impunity that spills over into institutions that are in US national interests to function, that are not functioning," Mendelson said.