Russia reaches out to China as West fumes over Georgia's separatists

Western governments roundly condemned Russia’s decision to formally recognize the independence of the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, sending the two sides on a collision course.

Medvedev is to fly to the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan for talks with Hu on the eve of a regional summit on Thursday that officials have said could address the Georgia crisis.

Stepping up its criticism of Moscow, France said Russia was "outside international law", with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner asserting the European Union "cannot accept these violations."

Kouchner also said on Wednesday Russia could have its sights set on Ukraine and Moldova after recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"It’s very dangerous. There are other objectives that one can suppose are the objectives of Russia, in particular Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova," he told Europe 1 radio station.

Some analysts speculate that Russian troops might target the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea if President Viktor Yushchenko continues to openly support Tbilisi in the Georgia-Russia conflict and continues to push for NATO membership.

Crimea, which is populated mostly by ethnic Russians, is home to the port of Sevastopol where Russia’s Black Sea fleet has been based since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Molodovan region of Transdniestr, which lies in the east of the country adjoining Ukraine, fought a brief independence war after the Soviet Unions collapse but is not internationally recognized. It hosts a contingent of Russian troops and a Soviet-era arms dump.

In a somber television address on Tuesday, Medvedev announced he had signed decrees recognizing the independence of the two regions at the heart of the conflict that erupted this month in Georgia. Medvedev had previously warned ex-Soviet Moldova on Monday against repeating Georgia's mistake of trying to use force to seize back control of a breakaway region.

Recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia was seen as cementing Russia’s military gains in the Caucasus following the five-day conflict with Georgian forces.

In an unprecedented move for the Kremlin, Medvedev gave a string of interviews to Western media outlets to explain Russia’s actions, speaking to CNN, Al Jazeera and the Financial Times among others.

"The most important thing is to defend the rights of the people who live in South Ossetia and Abkhazia," he told BBC, hours after announcing recognition of the two regions independence.

Medvedev is to join leaders on Thursday for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement, a regional security group dominated by Russia and China that includes four former Soviet Central Asian countries.

The group was set in 2001 as a counterweight to NATO’s influence in the strategic Central Asian region.

The Kremlin decision was greeted with bursts of gunfire on the streets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as locals danced and embraced to celebrate a move many saw as a historic liberation from Georgian influence.

WEST’S RESPONSE

But the response from the West was decidedly icy.

The European Union said it "strongly condemned" the move and a statement from the French EU presidency said the 27-nation bloc would now "examine from this point of view the consequences of Russias decision".

NATO nations also reaffirmed their condemnation on Wednesday and jointly called on Moscow to reverse the step.

"The North Atlantic Council condemns the decision of the Russian Federation to extend recognition to the South Ossetian and Abkhazian regions of Georgia and calls upon Russia to reverse its decision," the 26-nation military alliance said in a statement after its main political body met in Brussels.

Bush called on "Russia to live up to its international commitments, reconsider this irresponsible decision, and follow the approach set out in the six-point agreement" that ended the fighting earlier in the month.

Britain’s Foreign Minister David Miliband on Wednesday was due to travel to Ukraine, which critics of Moscow fear is among the most exposed to an increasingly assertive Russian foreign policy.

In his televised address, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili shot back at Moscow and said his country would step up its campaign to join NATO.

Russia seeks to "break the Georgian state, undermine the fundamental values of Georgia and to wipe Georgia from the map," he said.

"This is the first attempt in Europe after Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union to put a neighboring state on its knees and to change the borders of Europe by force," he said.

In a sign of a growing chill with the West, Russia’s ambassador to NATO announced Moscow was suspending cooperation with the Western alliance but that it would not pull out of an agreement to help stabilize Afghanistan.

At the heart of the stand-off is Kosovo, whose aspirations for independence from Serbia were supported militarily and diplomatically by the West, but rejected angrily by Moscow.

In "international relations, you cannot have one rule for some, and another rule for others," Medvedev wrote in a commentary in Wednesday’s issue of the Financial Times.

The international community had warned Russia against recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from Georgia in the early 1990s with Moscow’s backing after brief but bloody wars.

Tensions have mounted since Russian forces entered Georgia on Aug. 8 to thwart a Georgian attempt to retake South Ossetia.

France brokered a ceasefire, but the U.S. and other Western nations accused Russia of breaching the accord by keeping tanks and troops in Georgia.

The world’s second-largest oil producer, Russia is also a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council and plays a central role in efforts to solve global problems such as the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program.