Condoleezza Rice visits Georgia over South Ossetia conflict

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, arrived in Tbilisi today to bolster Georgia's position after it was routed by Russia in the conflict over South Ossetia.

She told reporters travelling with her that the immediate goal was to get Russian combat troops out of Georgia leaving more difficult questions to be addressed later.

But she said she would never ask Georgia to agree to something that was not in its best interests.

Washington has already warned that the fighting could set back Moscow's relations with the west for years, but has ruled out engaging militarily in the region.

Rice's visit came after the US sent military transport planes with humanitarian and medical supplies to Georgia, coupled with a warning from George Bush to Russia not to obstruct the aid effort.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was also meeting the Russian president, Dimitry Medvedev, at the Black Sea resort of Sochi today as international efforts continued to reduce tensions.

Poland's agreement last night to station interceptor rockets at missile silos as part of a US missile defence shield in the Baltic region was today leading to even more frosty relations between Washington and Moscow.

The US says the shield is aimed at Iran, but Russia's Nato ambassador, Dmitry Rogozin, told Reuters news agency that "the fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that of course the missile defence system will be deployed not against Iran but the strategic potential of Russia."

Despite a draft French-brokered ceasefire that required Russian and Georgian forces to return to preconflict positions, Moscow's forces today remained deep in what was Georgian-controlled territory, well outside the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgia has still not formally signed the ceasefire agreement, which allows Russian peacekeepers to remain in South Ossetia.

Russian troops were today still blocking the entrance to Gori, which sits on Georgia's main east-west road, although they allowed in some humanitarian supplies.

Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, warned that "Russia's invasion of Georgia strikes at the heart of western values". In an article for the Washington Post newspaper reprinted in today's Guardian, he said: "If the international community allows Russia to crush our democratic independent state, it will be giving carte blanche to authoritarian governments everywhere."

But the Kremlin has dismissed western insistence that Georgia's territorial integrity forms the basis of any settlement of the conflict, fuelling fears that it is bent on annexing South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The international organisation Human Rights Watch said today it had collected evidence of Russian warplanes using cluster bombs against civilian areas in Georgia, saying military aircraft killed at least 11 civilians and injured dozens of others in Gori and the village of Ruisi on Tuesday.

This was denied by the Russian general staff.