Georgia accused Russia of military aggression today over its plans to send more peacekeepers to two Georgian rebel regions, as the tensions were set to top the agenda of Nato-Russia talks.
"It's hard to believe that this is being done for the purposes of peacekeeping, it's rather the beginning of full scale military aggression," Georgia's top diplomat, David Bakradze, said.
His remarks came after Russia's defence ministry announced yesterday an increase in peacekeeping forces to Abkhazia and South Ossetia in response to what it called aggressive moves by pro-Western Georgia.
Mr Bakradze accused Russia of strengthening "de facto control on the ground" in Abkhazia in the last three months and establishing direct ties with the local authorities, which "questions Georgia's jurisdiction".
The Russian peacekeeping announcement only fuelled problems, said President Mikheil Saakashvili's new "special representative", who resigned as foreign minister last week.
"The Georgian side, as the host country, should be notified in advance and there should be consent from Georgia on any troop deployment, including peacekeepers. We have not been notified," he said.
"Peacekeeping is not strengthened by unilateral steps," he said during a trip to Brussels.
Russia has peacekeepers in the regions under an agreement with Georgia from the 1990s following wars in which separatists broke away and established close ties with Moscow.
The Russian defence ministry, which accused Georgia of massing troops near the rebel areas, did not say how many extra soldiers were being sent, but said that 15 new observation posts would be set up on the front line in Abkhazia.
Around 2,000 Russians serve there and a further 1,000 in South Ossetia.
As the rhetoric escalated, a Nato official said that neither Russia nor Georgia had informed the military alliance of any plans to move their forces, as they would normally be expected to.
"Nothing has been notified," the official said, on condition of anonymity, ahead of regular talks between Nato and Russian ambassadors at the military alliance's headquarters in Brussels.
Under a key Soviet-era arms pact, Moscow could be expected to notify Nato nations of any troop movements, as it has continued to do despite freezing the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty in December.
Georgia, for its part, is striving to become a Nato member and the 26-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization confirmed at a summit this month that Tbilisi would one day join its ranks.