MOSCOW (AP) - Russia’s president on Friday denounced NATO’s plan to hold military exercises in Georgia, calling it a dangerous move that could threaten efforts to improve relations between Moscow and the Western alliance.
NATO has said Russia is welcome to join the exercises beginning May 6 and involving 19 other countries.
But Russia is vehemently opposed to their being held in Georgia, claiming the former Soviet republic is preparing for aggression against two separatist territories it lost in a war with Russia in August. Russian troops are now stationed the territories, which Moscow has recognized as independent.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused NATO of “muscle-flexing” by planning the exercises in the small Black Sea country on Russia’s southern border, and suggested they could bring a new chill in relations with the alliance and possible retaliation.
“I think this is a wrong decision, a dangerous decision,” Medvedev told reporters at his residence in Barvikha, near Moscow.
“We will, in the most thorough manner, follow what happens there and take one decision or another,” he said, without elaborating.
Russia also vehemently objects to Georgia’s aim of joining NATO _ an objection that has intensified since the August war.
NATO broke contacts with Russia in the wake of the war, but efforts to resume ties have progressed in recent months ahead of a planned April 29 meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. Alliance spokesman Robert Pszczel said Thursday the upcoming military exercises posed no threat to Russia.
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday said Russia’s criticism of the exercises amounted to “interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state and an attempt to dictate its will to international society,” according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Moscow has deployed thousands of troops in the Georgian separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and alleges that Georgia is preparing new actions against the territories.
Russia also has criticized Georgia’s aims of rebuilding its military, which was badly weakened in the August war.
“The ongoing remilitarization of Georgia poses a real threat of regional destabilization,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Thursday.
The issue could also impede efforts to improve U.S.-Russian relations under President Barack Obama.
The Bush administration had given substantial military support to Georgia, including training and equipment sent before the war with the aim of improving the small country’s ability to fight terrorism.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry recently warned Washington that helping to rearm Georgia now would be “extremely dangerous” and amount to “nothing but the encouragement of the aggressor.”
The August war began when Georgian forces launched a heavy artillery assault on the South Ossetian capital. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said he ordered the barrage after Russian troops began entering South Ossetia, but Russia says the assault was a bloodthirsty attempt to retake the region.
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