Russia accused the United States today of encouraging Georgian aggression by supporting Tbilisi's Nato membership bid.
US Vice President Dick Cheney, touring southern Caucasus and Black Sea states after the Russian invasion of Georgia, told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili yesterday that Washington was fully committed to Tbilisi's bid to join the alliance.
"The new promises to Tbilisi relating to the speedy membership of Nato simply strengthen the Saakashvili regime's dangerous feeling of impunity and encourages its dangerous ambitions," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, hosting Mr Cheney today, said Nato membership was vital to protect his country, which shares a long land border with Russia and has a large Russian-speaking population.
Uncertainty over relations with the West hit Russian financial market on Fridays. Shares plunged over 7 per cent to their lowest in more than two years.
Moscow sent tanks and troops deep into Georgian territory to prevent what it called genocide when Tbilisi attempted to retake the pro-Russian province of South Ossetia by force on August 7th.
The Kremlin subsequently recognised South Ossetia and a second rebel region, Abkhazia, as independent states, drawing strong condemnation from Mr Saakashvili, his US ally and Europe.
Mr Cheney is touring the region to shore up support for US allies Georgia and Azerbaijan, key links in an energy corridor bypassing Russia that transports around 1 per cent of daily world crude oil output from the Caspian Sea.
Mr Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president, has stepped up calls for swift Nato membership following the conflict in South Ossetia, but his political rivals are either cool or openly oppose an alliance that giant neighbour Russia sees as hostile.
Ukraine's opposition leader and presidential hopeful, Viktor Yanukovich, called Georgia's actions in South Ossetia last month "criminal" and warned today against forcing Ukraine to enter the Nato military alliance.
Mr Cheney met Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose enthusiasm for Nato has cooled since she signed a letter in January calling for a Membership Action Plan (MAP) - the first step towards joining the alliance.
A Cheney spokeswoman said the US vice president told her that "it has been a challenging time for Ukraine because of recent developments in Russia."
Ms Tymoshenko focused her comments on economic ties and said visits by Mr Cheney and US President George W. Bush showed that the two countries "remain close strategic partners".
The Georgia crisis has alarmed Russia's neighbours, and Mr Yushchenko says Nato membership is vital to protecting Ukraine's territorial integrity.
"This is only possible in one situation - when Ukraine integrates into the transatlantic alliance (Nato), starting with receiving the MAP," he said in a statement on his website.
European Union president France brokered a ceasefire to the conflict, and EU foreign ministers meet in southern France later today to discuss sending civilian monitors to the zone.
A decision to deploy an initial 200-plus personnel could be taken in just over a week, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy returns from a trip to Moscow, an EU official said.
The European Union, a major consumer of Russian oil and gas, has threatened to suspend talks on a partnership agreement if Moscow fails to withdraw its troops to pre-conflict positions in Georgia by September 15th.
But EU leaders said sanctions would only isolate Russia. EU trade chief Peter Mandelson said in an interview today it was in no-one's interests to use the Georgia crisis to delay Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization.
Reuters