GEORGIA:THE BUSH administration warned Russia yesterday that it would fail in its "strategic objective" of redrawing Europe's post-cold war map by invading Georgia.
The warning came as 26 Nato countries declared there would be "no business as usual" with Moscow until it withdrew its forces from occupied state.
An emergency meeting in Brussels of Nato foreign ministers voiced strong support for Georgia and agreed to establish new structures cementing the country's links with the West, but avoided speeding up moves to bring Georgia into the alliance.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice accused Russian forces 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 also opted to freeze sessions of the six-year-old Nato-Russia council until withdrawal from Georgia 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 Dr Rice. "There will absolutely be no new line."
With the US, Britain, and the former Soviet satellites of central Europe adopting a robust position on the invasion, the more pro-Russian governments in the EU, such as Germany, Italy and France, were muted yesterday.
French, British and US officials are drafting a UN Security Council resolution in New York hardening 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 in Vienna by Finnish diplomats and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation 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," said US undersecretary of state Dan Fried.
The Russians are erecting checkpoints on the roads outside South Ossetia, raising fears of an extension of the area under their control.
"The Russians should withdraw from Georgia proper, but this is open to interpretation," said a European diplomat involved in the negotiations.
Despite tougher rhetoric and a mood of increasing exasperation with Moscow, the Russians have 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 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.
Deputy head of Russia's general staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn confirmed the seizure of the Humvees: "We are not pulling troops out, we're pulling them back. Pullback - this is the term we use."
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".
Their task had been made easier, he said, by the deal negotiated by French president Nicolas Sarkozy. The ambiguities in it have "allowed the Russians to manipulate it", he said.
- (Guardian service)