Russia's decision to formally recognize the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states has triggered a furious diplomatic response from the West.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is threatening a veto in the United Nations Security Council should Russia seek international recognition for its Tuesday move.
"Abkhazia and South Ossetia are a part of the internationally recognized borders of Georgia and it's going to remain so," she said Tuesday from the West Bank.
"This decision is inconsistent with numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions that Russia has voted for in the past, and is also inconsistent with the French-brokered six-point ceasefire agreement which President (Dmitry) Medvedev signed," U.S. President George Bush said in a statement from his Crawford, Texas ranch.
"Russia's action only exacerbates tensions and complicates diplomatic negotiations," he said. "In accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions that remain in force, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are within the internationally recognized borders of Georgia, and they must remain so."
Britain, Germany and France also slammed the decision.
"Today's announcement by President Medvedev that Russia will recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia is unjustifiable and unacceptable," said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement.
"I am holding talks today with international partners and will be visiting Ukraine tomorrow to ensure the widest possible coalition against Russian aggression in Georgia."
Ukraine is another former Soviet state that, like Georgia, wants to join NATO -- and has had some occasionally bumpy relations with Russia as a result.
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev advised the West to accept his country's move.
"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War," Medvedev was quoted as saying Tuesday by the ITAR-Tass news agency. "But we don't want it and in this situation everything depends on the position of our partners."
"If they want to preserve good relations with Russia in the West, they will understand the reason behind our decision," he said.
Russian forces remain outside the territorial boundaries of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which both broke with Georgia in the early 1990s and have run their own affairs ever since.
Russia also maintains a military presence near in the port city of Poti, which Western countries call a violation of the European Union-brokered ceasefire.
U.S. warships are delivering humanitarian aid for Georgia through Poti and Batumi, another port city, but Russian officials are suspicious that military aid in also making its way in.
"The heightened activity of NATO ships in the Black Sea perplexes us," Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said in Moscow. He described the use of warships to deliver aid as "devilish."
The U.S. and other Western countries have given substantial military aid to Georgia. The U.S. flew 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq when the fighting with Russia intensified more than two weeks ago.
In his televised remarks, Medvedev accused Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili of resorting to "genocide" to regain control of South Ossetia.
"Georgia chose the least human way to achieve its goal -- to absorb South Ossetia by eliminating a whole nation," he said.
Georgia fired back: "Russia is trying to legalize the results of an ethnic cleansing it has conducted, to oppose it to the West," Georgia's state minister on reintegration, Timur Yakobashvili, told The Associated Press. "But it will result in Russia's isolation from the world."
However, South Ossetians and Abkhazians were ecstatic over the announcement.
"This is the happiest day of my life," Julia Babyeva, 19, said as she celebrated the news in Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's capital that had been heavily damaged by Georgian artillery on Aug. 7, leading to the intervention of Russian forces and the subsequent five-day war.
Most people in those regions already hold Russian passports and rely on Russia for pensions and other subsidies.
With files from The Associated Press
