British Foreign Secretary David Miliband will make a keynote speech in Ukraine later today strongly condemning Russia’s decision to formally recognise two breakaway regions of Georgia.
Mr Miliband said he was visiting Kiev in a bid to assemble the “widest possible coalition against Russian aggression”.
Russia’s president Dmitri Medvedev was yesterday accused of “inflaming” the crisis by insisting that South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be independent.
Mr Medvedev told a news agency: “We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War.
“But we don’t want it and in this situation everything depends on the position of our partners.”
He said the West would have to “understand the reason behind” the decision to recognise the regions if it wanted to preserve good relations with Russia.
Mr Miliband said Russia’s recognition of the two regions was “unjustifiable and unacceptable” and further inflamed an already tense situation in the region.
“It will also not work,” he said in a statement yesterday. “It is contrary to the principles of the peace agreement, which Russia recently agreed, and to recent Russian statements.
“It takes no account of the views of the hundreds of thousands of Georgians and others who have been forced to abandon their homes in the two territories.”
Mr Miliband is backed by Western leaders including US President George Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
PA