A Russian military convoy leaves a Georgian army base that was occupied by Russians in Senaki, western Georgia, Monday, Aug. 18, 2008. Russia's president promised to start withdrawing forces from positions in Georgia on Monday, but suggested they could stay in the breakaway region at the heart of the fighting that has reignited Cold War tensions.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (Map, News) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that Russia is playing a "very dangerous game" with the U.S. and its allies and warned that NATO would not allow Moscow to win in Georgia, destabilize Europe or draw a new Iron Curtain through it.
On her way to an emergency NATO foreign ministers meeting on the crisis, Rice said the alliance would punish Russia for its invasion of the Georgia and deny its ambitions by rebuilding and fully backing Georgia and other Eastern European democracies.
"We have to deny Russian strategic objectives, which are clearly to undermine Georgia's democracy, to use its military capability to damage and in some cases destroy Georgian infrastructure and to try and weaken the Georgian state," she said.
"We are determined to deny them their strategic objective," Rice told reporters aboard her plane, adding that any attempt to recreate the Cold War by drawing a "new line" through Europe and intimidating former Soviet republics and ex-satellite states into submission would fail.
"We are not going to allow Russia to draw a new line at those states that are not yet integrated into the trans-Atlantic structures," she said, referring to Georgia and Ukraine, which have not yet joined NATO or the European Union but would like to.
Rice could not say what NATO would eventually decide to do to make its position clear but said the alliance would speak with one voice "to clearly indicate that we are not accepting a new line."
At the same time, she said that by flexing its military muscle in Georgia as well as elsewhere, including the resumption of Cold War-era strategic bomber patrols off the coast of Alaska, Russia was engaged in high-stakes brinksmanship that could backfire.
This "is a very dangerous game and perhaps one the Russians want to reconsider," Rice said of the flights that began again with frequency about six months ago. "This is not something that is just cost-free. Nobody needs Russian strategic aviation along America's coast."
At Tuesday's meeting, the NATO ministers will consider a range of upcoming activities planned with Russia - from military exercises to ministerial meetings - and decide case-by-case at the meeting Tuesday whether to go ahead or cancel each.
They will also discuss support for a planned international monitoring mission in the region and a package of support to help Georgia rebuild infrastructure damaged in its devastating defeat at the hands of the Russian armed forces.
And, she suggested that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who signed an E.U.-backed cease-fire brokered by the French, may be unable to exert power behind the scenes against his powerful predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, or the Russian military.
She said she thought the French would be seeking "an explanation from the Russians for why the Russian president either won't or can't keep his word."
"It didn't take that long for the Russian forces to get in and it really shouldn't take that long for them to get out," Rice said.
Amid worsening relations with Moscow, NATO ministers were expected to review a range of military, ministerial and other upcoming activities planned with Russia - and decide on a case by case basis whether to cancel each activity.
Russian troops and tanks have controlled a wide swath of Georgia for days. They also began a campaign to disable the Georgian military, destroying or carting away large caches of military equipment.
Two senior U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity Monday that intelligence also showed the Russian military had moved several SS-21 missile launchers into South Ossetia, in range of Tbilisi.
The move Friday allows Russia to pull out of Georgia proper as promised, but punish Tbilisi at any moment with the push of a button. Experts said it is the same weapon system used in October 1999, when missiles slammed into the Chechen capital of Grozny and killed at least 140 people.
All of the missiles that were fired into Georgia during the conflict were fired from Russian territory, one of the administration officials said.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to confirm the report of the missile launchers, but said such positioning would be prohibited by the cease-fire that Russia agreed to.
"Anything such as that, or any other military equipment that was moved in, would be in violation of the cease-fire and should be removed immediately," Whitman said.
Meanwhile, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to NATO, warned that an anti-Russian propaganda campaign could jeopardize existing security cooperation. "We hope that tomorrow's decisions by NATO will be balanced and that responsible forces in the West will give up the total cynicism that has been so evident (which) is pushing us back to the Cold War era," he told reporters Monday.
Washington has denied Rogozin's claims that it is out to wreck the NATO-Russia Council - a consultative panel set up in 2002 to improve relations between the former Cold War foes.
"We don't want to destroy the NATO-Russia Council, but Russia's actions have called into question the premise of the NATO-Russia relationship," U.S. Ambassador Kurt Volker said ahead of the NATO talks.
Georgia: Cold war map will not be redrawn, US warns Russia
· Rice says Kremlin risking international isolation
· Nato suspends normal ties with Moscow
Ian Traynor in Brussels and Julian Borger in Tbilisi The Guardian, Wednesday August 20 2008 Article historyThe Bush administration warned Russia yesterday that it would fail in its "strategic objective" of redrawing Europe's post-cold war map by invading Georgia, as 26 Nato countries declared there would be "no business as usual" with Moscow until it withdraws its forces from Georgia.
An emergency meeting in Brussels of Nato foreign ministers voiced strong support for Georgia and agreed to establish new structures cementing Georgia's links with the west, but avoided speeding up moves to bring Georgia into Nato.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, accused Russian forces in Georgia of "bombing civilians and wanton destruction" and told the Kremlin that the Russian government had hard choices to make if it wanted to avoid international isolation. The ministers opted to freeze sessions of the six-year-old Nato-Russia council until the Russian retreat was completed.
"This Nato which has come so far in a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace is not going to permit a new line to be drawn in Europe," said Rice.
With the US, Britain, and the former Soviet satellites of central Europe adopting a robust position on the Kremlin's conduct, the more pro-Russian governments in the European Union such as Germany, Italy, and France were muted yesterday.
French, British and US officials are drafting a UN security council resolution in New York stiffening the terms of a Russian pullout, and agreement was reached to deploy the first western monitors in Georgia. Twenty unarmed military officers are to go to Georgia tomorrow, with another 80 expected to follow within weeks.
But the agreement to deploy international monitors took a week to finalise and was only sealed after negotiations through the night yesterday in Vienna by Finnish diplomats and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, together with the Russians and the Georgians.
The agreement suited the Russians, who had insisted the monitors not be permitted into South Ossetia. The observers are to patrol in "Georgia proper" and in what the Russians describe as their "security zone" bordering South Ossetia.
"The Russian side supports the deployment of a considerable number of additional observers in the security zone," said the Russian foreign ministry.
"There is no security zone," the US under-secretary of state, Dan Fried, told the Guardian.
David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, flew straight from Brussels to Tbilisi last night to voice British and Nato support. Standing alongside the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, Miliband promised "an intensification of the relationship between Nato and Georgia" through the formation of a joint commission to enhance cooperation.
There was no mention, however, of when the process of Georgia's accession might begin.
"It's very, very important that Georgian people know that the British government and British people stand in solidarity with them against threats to them, their life, their livelihood and their country."
Saakashvili responded that he was "thrilled and gratified by the support and solidarity the UK government and Mr Miliband himself has showed to our people".
Despite the tougher rhetoric and a mood of increasing exasperation with Moscow, the Russians toyed with the Georgians and the west, sending mixed signals about the withdrawal they signed up for last week.
A small Russian armoured convoy was reported to have left Gori heading north. At the same time a prisoner exchange was carried out at the frontline village of Igoeti, 27 miles west of Tbilisi. Fifteen Georgians were swapped for five Russians.
However, elsewhere in Georgia, Russian troops appeared to be expanding their operations. In the Black Sea port of Poti, well outside the two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Russians arrested, blindfolded and drove away 20 Georgian port police and seized US-supplied Humvee vehicles.
A spokesman for Georgia's interior ministry, Shota Utiashvili, said the Russians had looted commercial shipping offices. "They took everything from cars to toilet paper, and everything they didn't take, they destroyed," he told the Guardian.
The deputy head of Russia's general staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, confirmed the seizure of the Humvees. "We are not pulling troops out, we're pulling them back. Pull back - this is the term we use," he said, suggesting Russian forces would remain in the provinces.
Lawrence Sheets, the Caucasus project director for the International Crisis Group, said Russian tactics appeared to be aimed at "sowing total confusion and wearing the Georgians down". He added that their task was made easier by the deal negotiated by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The ambiguities in it have "allowed the Russians to manipulate it", he said.
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