TENSION ROSE yesterday between the US and Russia over Russia's occupation of parts of Georgia, as the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice embarked on an emergency peace mission to the Caucasus.
Moscow defied US and European leaders by continuing to move forces in and around at least three Georgian towns, two days after President Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin accepted a six-point peace plan that requires Russia to withdraw from Georgia.
But Russia insisted its troop movements in Georgia proper were allowed by a clause in the agreement which allows Russian forces "to implement additional security measures" while awaiting international monitors.
In a day of escalating hostile rhetoric, the White House dismissed as "bluster" indications that Russia might annex the separatist Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
After meeting with the French president Nicolas Sarkozy at his holiday residence on the Côte d'Azur, Ms Rice said: "The United States of America stands strongly, as the president of France just said, for the territorial integrity of Georgia. This is a member state of the United Nations and its internationally recognised borders need to be respected. The provisional ceasefire must go into place."
"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity," Ms Rice's Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, countered. "I believe it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state."
President Dmitry Medvedev's meeting with the leaders of the enclaves was interpreted as a sign that Russia is considering annexing both.
At a joint press conference with Ms Rice, Mr Sarkozy said the ceasefire was fragile, but the situation on the ground was improving. In fact, Russian forces reneged on a promise to leave the central Georgian town of Gori yesterday and massed forces in the western town of Zugdidi.
Mr Sarkozy asserted that the ceasefire violations will cease once Ms Rice obtains the signature of the Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili on the written accord at their meeting in Tbilisi today.
The Georgian president said on Wednesday the text did not require his signature, but Mr Lavrov yesterday told his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner that Mr Saakashvili had to sign it.
Both the US and Russia have described their military presence in Georgia as "humanitarian". The US yesterday sent two military cargo aircraft to Tbilisi, loaded with relief supplies. But Russia's deputy chief of general staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn said he was not sure that the aircraft carried only humanitarian cargo.
Mr Saakashvili has reproached the US for not defending Georgia more forcefully. The US secretary of defence Robert Gates yesterday said there was "no prospect for the use of US military force" in the Georgian crisis.
In neighbouring Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko angered Moscow by signing a decree ordering Russian warships to obtain permission before entering or leaving their Black Sea base in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, which Moscow leases from Kiev. Like Georgia, Ukraine wants to join Nato.