Ahead of the meeting of the leading world economies in St Petersburg, Mr Putin warned that action without UN approval would be 'an aggression' as the relationship between the two countries reaches it lowest point since the Cold War.
But President Obama, who is leading the international drive for an armed response to President Bashar Assad's apparent breach of the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons, said the credibility of the international community was on the line.
David Cameron arrived in Russia this morning and is already facing suggestions that he has been sidelined after ruling out British involvement in any military action in the wake of his shock Commons defeat last week.
He is not expected to have a formal bilateral meeting with President Obama.
Mr Obama last night cleared the first hurdle to obtaining Congressional approval for a strike, as the influential Senate Foreign Affairs Committee backed the use of force by a margin of 10-7, moving the measure to a full Senate vote next week.
The proposal allows the use of force for 60 days, with the possibility of a 30-day extension.
The president has said he is confident of receiving approval from Congress for 'limited and proportionate' military action, which he said would not involve US troops putting 'boots on the ground' in Syria.
Mr Assad had flouted a chemical weapons ban enshrined in treaties signed by governments representing 98 per cent of the world's population, he said, adding: 'I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line.'
Speaking in Sweden as he travelled to St Petersburg, the US president said the credibility of the international community was 'on the line' if it allowed Assad to act with impunity.
He repeated his 'high confidence' that the regime was to blame for the sarin gas attack on a suburb of Damascus on August 21 which the White House believes killed more than 1,400 people, including 400 children.
But today Russia is warning that a U.S. strike on Syria's atomic facilities might result in a nuclear catastrophe and is urging the U.N. to present a risk analysis of such a scenario.
The warning comes from Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich.
He said in a statement that a strike on a miniature reactor near Damascus or other nuclear installations could contaminate the region with radioactivity, adding: 'The consequences could be catastrophic.'
IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor told the AP in an email that her agency is ready to 'consider the questions raised' by Lukashevich if it receives a formal request to do so from Moscow.
Russia's Interfax news agency says that Moscow intends to bring up the issue at next week's 35-nation IAEA board meeting.
Meanwhile, France's prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, rallying support for French involvement in military action, told the National Assembly in Paris there was no doubt the Syrian government was to blame and a failure to react would allow Mr Assad to launch a similar attack again.
But the crisis is certain to dominate discussions on the margins of the two-day meeting, which comes amid indications of healthier recovery in countries like the UK, US and Japan, but faltering growth in emerging economies like China.
Britain will aim to use the formal proceedings in St Petersburg to press for progress on priorities like tax transparency, reforms to the financial services sector and free trade. The UK will resist an expected push by Brazil and Argentina to water down anti-protectionist language in the summit communique.
Following phone calls in recent days with Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, Mr Cameron will be pressing for the completion of an EU-Canada free trade deal which eluded him at the Lough Erne G8 summit hosted by the UK in Northern Ireland earlier this year.
He will be joined by Chancellor George Osborne, as well as the Bank of England's Mark Carney, who is the only central bank governor to attend in his role as chair of the international Financial Stability Board.
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