Russia relations plunged to their lowest point in years Tuesday over the conflict in Georgia and Russia's failure to withdraw from the former Soviet republic. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer accused Russia of failing to respect a French-brokered peace plan requiring both sides to move troops back to their positions before Georgia launched an offensive on the separatist region of South Ossetia. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels that Russia was entirely to blame for its growing diplomatic isolation in the West. She said Moscow was isolating itself by "invading smaller neighbors, bombing civilian infrastructure, going into villages and wreaking havoc and (carrying out) the wanton destruction of (Georgia's) infrastructure." But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shot back, calling the declaration approved at the NATO meeting "unobjective and biased." He accused NATO of trying to rescue what he called the "criminal regime" of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a close Western ally who is pushing hard to win his country membership in the alliance. "It appears to me that NATO is trying to portray the aggressor as the victim, to whitewash a criminal regime and to save a failing regime," Lavrov said. Some Russian tanks and armored vehicles left the key Georgia town of Gori on Tuesday but NATO said it was freezing contacts with Moscow until all Russian forces were out of the Black Sea state. Russian soldiers took about 20 Georgians in military uniform prisoner at a key Black Sea port in western Georgia on Tuesday, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeered American Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russian troops would withdraw to pre-conflict positions by Aug. 22. The UN Security Council had held emergency consultations Tuesday on the conflict between Russia and Georgia after France requested discussion of a new draft plan to end the hostilities. The new draft replaces a longer text that would have endorsed a peace plan promoted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and signed by Georgia and Russia. The latest, shorter draft demands full and immediate compliance with a ceasefire between Russia and Georgia, and the "immediate withdrawal of Russian forces to the lines held prior to the outbreak of hostilities, and the return of Georgian forces to their usual bases." British Foreign Secretary David Miliband accused Russia of "not living up to its word" on previous commitments to withdraw its troops from Georgia. "This is not just serious for Georgia but for the reputation of Russia in the world," he said. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday Moscow wanted a resolution to include the text of the peace plan. The Kremlin said Medvedev spoke to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by telephone about a resolution on South Ossetia. "Dmitry Medvedev shared the UN secretary general's opinion on the need to adopt a Security Council resolution on the situation in South Ossetia," the president's press service said in a statement. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper allowed on Tuesday for the possibility of commercial natural gas deals with Russia being put at risk by Russia's military actions in Georgia. Asked at a news conference if such deals could be at risk, Harper said: "We're examining obviously all aspects of our relationship. We're obviously focusing on aspects that have to with the strategic and military situation, but we will of course review everything." In a clear swipe at Russia, Poland's President Lech Kaczynski on Tuesday said his country would not give in to threats over its deal with Washington to deploy US missile silos on Polish soil. "Our neighbors should now understand that our nation will never give in, nor allow itself to be intimidated," Kaczynski said in a live prime-time television address, in the wake of Russian threats to target Poland in retaliation for hosting a US base.
