MOSCOW — Russia stunned the West on Tuesday by recognizing the independence of two Georgian breakaway regions, and U.S. warships plied the waters off Georgia in a gambit the Kremlin saw as gunboat diplomacy.
The announcement by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ignored the strong opposition of Europe and the United States, and signaled the Kremlin’s determination to shape its neighbors’ destinies even at the risk of closing its doors to the West.
“We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War,” Medvedev said.
While the risk of a military clash with the West seemed remote, the lack of high-level public diplomacy between the White House and the Kremlin added to an uneasy sense here of an escalating crisis.
The Kremlin’s recognition of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia suggested it was willing to risk nearly two decades of economic, political and diplomatic bonds with its Cold War antagonists.
Medvedev’s grim announcement, carried on national television, inspired jubilation on the streets of the rebel capitals. In the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, a parade of cars bearing the South Ossetian and Russian flags blared horns, and gunmen fired their weapons in the air.
The U.S., surprised by the speed of the Russian response, threatened a veto in the U.N. Security Council should Russia ask for international recognition for the territories.
“Abkhazia and South Ossetia are a part of the internationally recognized borders of Georgia, and it’s going to remain so,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.
President Bush called the Russian move “irresponsible.”
The Kremlin denounced the U.S. use of a Navy destroyer and Coast Guard cutter named the Dallas to deliver aid to Georgia’s Black Sea coast.
“Normally battleships do not deliver aid,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dryly told reporters in English.
Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. said it intends to deliver humanitarian aid by ship today to the beleaguered Georgian port city of Poti, which Russian troops still control through checkpoints on the city’s outskirts.
The independence declaration seems to have little practical impact on the lives of people living in the separatist regions, who have lived for years under Russia’s economic, political and military umbrella.
Still, the Kremlin recognition marked an initial step toward what could become a push for territorial expansion. Many South Ossetians have expressed a desire for integration into Russia.
