A US navy warship arrived in a Georgia's main Black Sea port of Batumi today with humanitarian aid as Russia ignored Western demands to remove its remaining troops from Georgia's heartland.
Russia says the residual troops are peacekeepers needed to avert further bloodshed and to protect the people of Georgia's separatist, pro-Moscow provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia two days after Moscow said it had wrapped up its withdrawal.
In Batumi, 80 kilometres south of another port of Poti, where Russian troops are still present, the
USS McFaularrived with aid for the tens of thousands displaced by the conflict
Two other US ships are due to follow the guided missile destroyer to the port. The US has already delivered some aid by military cargo plane but is now shipping in beds and food for the displaced.
Russia's Black Sea fleet flagship vessel, the
Moskva,is no longer in the same area, after it returned to its base in Ukraine yesterday, a Russian navy spokesman said.
The United States and Europe fear the Russian presence in Georgia will cement the country's ethnic partition, undermine the pro-Western government of President Mikheil Saakashvili and threaten vital energy pipelines criss-crossing the country.
France, which currently holds the EU presidency, today called for a special European Council meeting on Georgia on September 1st.