Russia will support the position of Georgia's separatist South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions in talks on their future status, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said today.
The Kremlin leader met the two rebel leaders at the Kremlin to sign a six-point plan to end hostilities brokered this week by France, agencies reported.
"Please be aware that Russia's position is unchanged. We will support any decisions taken by the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia...and not only do we support it but we will guarantee them both in the Caucasus and throughout the world," Mr Medvedev was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Russian tanks are believed to have rolled into the Georgian port town of Poti today, accompanying trucks carrying troops to the port, witnesses said. However, but Russia has denied its forces were there.
"Just a few minutes ago they (Russians) entered Poti in tanks," a Poti shipping agent, Nikoloz Gogoli, said by telephone at about 9am GMT. "Some of the guys have blue signs, badges, which means they should be peacekeepers."
Asked about the reports, Russia's deputy chief of the general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said: "There are no Russian armor or troops in the city of Poti now."
Mr Gogoli said the tanks did not enter the port and were moving in the direction of an old military base.
Guards at the port said the tanks were accompanying troop trucks and moved away from the port once the trucks had parked inside. One guard said one truck was carrying around 20 troops and identified them as peacekeepers.
A Reuters staff photographer on the scene was barred from entering the port.
The harbourmaster in the Port of Poti, who did not identify himself by name, said that Russian troops sank six Georgian cutters stored at Poti yesterday. He said no one was hurt.
Mr Gogoli said the cutters, old military boats, were not fired on from sea or air and Russian troops warned bystanders of their plans, he said.
Elsewhere, Russia said it welcomed more Western monitors in Georgia's embattled breakaway region of South Ossetia
"In South Ossetia, I have no doubt that apart from the returning mission by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in (regional capital) Tskhinvali, we would not at all mind extra...monitors," said Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov this morning.
Reuters