RUSSIA:"FOR RUSSIA, August 8th was like September 11th for the United States," Russian president Dmitry Medvedev told foreign journalists and academics yesterday.
"I would like to see major lessons from it for the world."
Nato membership would destabilise the region and Georgia's attack on the breakaway South Ossetia was unnecessary and unprovoked and was encouraged by the United States, Mr Medvedev said in an interview.
He made clear that the lessons, as Russia sees them, are that the post-cold war "illusion" that a world with one superpower is a safe and predictable place is now over.
The 42-year-old president said that George Bush had phoned him shortly after he had ordered Russian forces to drive the Georgians back. "You're a young president with a liberal background. Why do you need this?" Mr Medvedev quoted Mr Bush as saying.
"I told him we had no choice," Mr Medvedev said.
The Russian president's interview followed a day after a similar interview with prime minister Vladimir Putin. He seemed to be talking from the same script, although there were important differences between the two.
The president was more blunt about his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, calling him "burdened with a host of pathologies" and alleging that he often appeared in public under the influence of drugs.
Mr Medvedev accused US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice of blocking a tentative deal made between Russia and Georgia to sign an agreement on the use of force. "Rice met him and the boy changed miraculously afterwards. He started to postpone the agreement. He started preparations for war," Mr Medvedev said. - (Guardian Service)