Medvedev looks east for support on Georgia
China says defence budget to riseThe Georgia crisis has alarmed other former Soviet republics with sizeable Russian minorities, particularly Ukraine and the Baltic states.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband, on a visit to NATO aspirant Ukraine, said Medvedev had a big responsibility not to start a new Cold War.
But in reality, the West has little leverage over a newly confident Russia rolling in cash from high oil and gas prices.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who like Saakashvili has irked Moscow by seeking to join NATO and move out of Moscow's orbit, has condemned Russia's war with Georgia.
Yushchenko told Reuters he wanted to raise the question of increasing Russia's rent on its Sevastopol base in Ukraine's Crimea region, the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
Moscow says any renegotiation would break a 1997 deal under which Moscow leases the base for $98 million (53 million pounds) a year until 2017.
Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili on Thursday accused Russia of planning to "redraw the map of Europe by force".
"If Moscow can oust Georgia's democratically elected government, it can then intimidate other democratic European governments. Where will this end?" he wrote in the Financial Times.
(Editing by Andrew Roche)
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