Russia threatened Poland with a nuclear strike yesterday as the ripples of the Caucasus conflict spread through Europe and pitched West against East along new borders.

In a chilling echo of the Cold War, Russia gave warning that Poland was “exposing itself to a strike — 100 per cent” after signing a deal with the US to set up a missile shield on Polish soil.

The threat, the strongest since the fall of the Soviet Union, came as President Saakashvili of Georgia was forced to accept defeat as he signed a truce giving the Russian Army the right to patrol Georgian soil.

General Anatoli Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the general staff in Moscow, said that Russian military doctrine sanctioned the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them”, as Poland had done in signing the deal.

Vladimir Putin's mastery checkmates the West

Michael Binyon says Russia has been biding its time - but its victory in Georgia has been brutal and brilliant

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• Georgia forced to accept a Russian occupation

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At a tense press conference with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, President Medvedev of Russia attacked the timing of the deal, saying that it exposed the “fairytale” that the shield was a defence against rogue states. “The deployment of new antimissile forces has as its aim the Russian Federation,” he said.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, had flown to Tbilisi, while Mrs Merkel flew to Sochi to press for an end to the conflict that began last week.

It was a day of intense diplomacy, high tension and raw emotion. Dr Rice was visibly uncomfortable sharing a podium with a reluctant Mr Saakashvili, who gambled and lost when he sent his troops to put down pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia, provoking a full-scale Russian invasion. Mr Saakashvili came close to tears as he vowed that he would “never, ever surrender” in the show-down with Russia. He accused his Western allies of inviting Moscow’s aggression by denying Georgia a foot on the road to Nato membership last April. “We told the world this is about starting an invasion,” he said. “We screamed to the world: stop it.”

Dr Rice’s visit was a show of support for Georgia’s pro-Western Government after President Bush vowed not to cast aside his ally in the face of Russian “bullying and intimidation”.

She condemned Moscow for not honouring its verbal promise to halt military operations and called on Mr Medvedev to effect an immediate withdrawal. “This must take place and take place now,” she said. “This is not an agreement about the future of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is about getting Russian troops out.”

She said that Russia’s actions called into question what role it really planned to play in international politics.

Earlier in the day, Reuters reported that a Russian military convoy had advanced to within 30 miles of Tbilisi from the Russian-occupied town of Gori inside Georgia proper.

President Bush said in his weekly radio address that Russia’s invasion of Georgia was “completely unacceptable to the free nations of the world”.

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