Whilst aware of realpolitik, I am suprised to hear that the Russian Government could tell the Government of Kyrgyzstan, a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, who can use bases on their sovereign territorory.

George, Montrose, UK

It's all your fantasy - look for what Mr. Rogosin (Russia's permanent representative in NATO) said. Of caurse cooperation with NATO should be limited now, but Russia is pragmatic - Afganistan is a global threat.

Olga, Siberia, Russia

I say good for Russia!.
We shouldn't be expending British lives in Afghanistan anyway.
Why should our! brave men and women face death & maiming for oil pipelines & corporate greed.
Time to get out of Iraq & Afghanistan & disband NATO.
Russia is within its rights & merely defended its position.

Elizabeth, Herts, England

Bill Clinton brought this on by pushing NATO into Russia's front yard. George Bush has been trying to push into the back yard as well. They had a marvelous chance to cooperate with Russia, but instead tried to dominate it, taking advantage of its being down. Well now it's back up and rebelling.

Arik Silverman, MIlwaukee, USA

that chimp we Americans placed in the whitehouse and his "national security team" are going to alienate the one country in the world that can help us. Is it January '09 yet?

Ray Jones, Smallville, UA

If you start abusing your neighbour and criticising his every action as well as his family don't be surprised when he wont let you park on his drive way.
I seem to remember the boot being on the other foot when the Falklands war started. Hypocrisy is a political disease which we Brits do very well.

mike gee, bournemouth, uk

West deprived itself of the controls over its neighbour. Instead of developing market cooperation West held endless, hopless and rather unfair negotiations on Russia's joining to WTO, and as thanks for Russia's support to US after 11/09 NATO surrounded Russia by military bases. Who'd like it?

Fyodor, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

Supporting Georgia may not prove to be the smartest move. The Georgians were well warned what would happen if they attacked. We should be looking for ways to calm the situating and stop all the silly talk from our very inexperienced and foolish leaders. Russia has shown it will not back down.

D Case, Newquay,

Never a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

Paul, UK,

Stalin's idea: if there's a people there is a problem, if there's no people, there's no problem," should now be called the Saakashvili process.
M Bajer, london, UK neither has the US or UK.
Russia has this as a bargining chip, NATO needs to think clearly, not be pushed by the US.

darren, London, UK

Well maybe it wasn't such a good idea for NATO to support and collaborate with Georgia's mass murder of 2100 Ossetian civilians and 8 Russian peacekeepers.

Looks like war crime doesn't pay after all.

Robert, Birmingham,

NATO is quite prepared to suspend cooperation with Russia but then affects surprise when that works both ways. Typical of the double standards the USA has been employing throughout the Bush tears.

Peter Berman, Taunton, UK

Are the NATO bigwigs really that stupid? To allow Georgia to open hostilities with no reproach & then condem Russia for helping the ethnics in Georgia seems to be suicidal for any relationship with Moscow.
Now they seem suprised by Moscows latest move, they are surely dullards, probably yanks!

Pete, St Albans, England

I hope Europeans and Americans have contingency plans for refugees leaving for Africa and Australia...etc when ethic wars erupt across the near borders. 11 million ethnic Russians living in Ukraine...etc are fiercely patriotic to the Russian cause. If Yugoslavia was bad, wait until you see......

William, Boston,

To anyone who has followed Russia’s rhetoric and actions in recent years it is no surprise that Russia is using its piecekeepers to keep pieces of Georgia for itself. The only questions the Russian invasion of Georgia posed were „Who is next?“ and „When?“

Sander Heinsalu, New Haven, US

NATO is not properly led at the moment. President Bush is too discredited and too much of a lame duck to lead - as it Gordon Brown. The Germans are pacificists and the French, while willing - are not strong enough to lead the alliance.

Andre, Portland, USA

In 1991, USSR collapsed. In just 5 years we have virtually no science, no hi-tech industry, no education, no medicine, no army. Instead, we have "freedom", corruption, Taleban in Chechnya, shooting at the streets, NATO and missiles at our borders. Why is "west" surprised that we did not like it?

Sergey, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

This will ultimately help the mission in Afghanistan as it is time NATO forces secured the Khyber pass area instead of going around it and letting it fester with the Taliban.

In the grand scheme of things, this move by Russia is relatively weak.

Anthony, Los Angeles, USA

Not another Munchen, 30 September is approaching, please! No more appeasement, ok?

Alex Ulko, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Ah,youve not really thought about this have you Bush administration? Another fine example of succesful foreign policy! bravo!
What frightens me the most is that the Russian government is single handedly outwitting NATO with every move, NATO are blundering their way into geoplotical catastrophe.

Chris, rochdale, GB

I don't think Russia realises that the West does NOT want to attack them. Why would we? What for?
No - I think that the military is still in charge in Russia hence the threats from one of their generals. Can you imagine any general in the West doing this? No.
We did offer Russia a partnership....

Phil, Preston,

Let`s `play` them at their game.....up the anti and see if they really want to go backwards to an isolated cold war era....doesn`t suit Russia as much as us.........we can prosper wothout them!

chado, sunderland,

Just remember folks. Russia has one of the world's most powerful nuclear armed ally and it's China. They're both part of The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). China will help Russia if it came to military conflict. Military alliance under the umbrella of "Anti-terrorism Unit".

jayil, london, uk

Russia is just trying to protect Osetian people from frenzy militants of Georgia and agressive politics of USA. This road is just catch in politic game to stop Georgia and save peoples life.

P.S. Gorbachev leaved politic life of Russia far far ago.

Alexander Ignatyev, Moscow, Russia

Dr Andris Lielmanis, Brampton, Canada, of course Gerogia could be used for a base, that is the second reason the US is interested in Georgia. The Main reason is Oil, and VP of the US own interests in the pipeline his associates built.
The West wants everything its own way, they picked wrong.

Darren, London, UK

Its always been in the interest of the US to be in another Cold War with Russia.

After all its no secret about 60% of US economy is related in some form to military.

Thats why at end of Cold War we saw unprovoked & fabricated wars like "war on terror" just so military spending can be sustained

Alex, Melbourne, Australia

James, perhaps you should do a bit more checking. Have a look at the Shanghai Cooperation Org., the Collective Security Treaty Org., the CIS et al. You'll find Russia can shut down the alternative supply route quite simply as they are Russian partners & a number have Russian troops stationed there.

Matt, Birmingham, UK

To Anthony L

Please have look on the world map. Russia has not any common borders with Afghanistan. There are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan between Russia and Afghanistan. All these are independent countries. To my mind Russia does not care much about the war there.

James, London, UK

No, M. Bajer, WE have not changed our stripes. If we continue to seek to isolate Russia, we will continue to be in conflict with them. For everyone's sake a change in policy is necessary.

Mike, Bristol, UK,

When you're fighting wannabe hegemonists like the U.S. and U.K. it helps to be chess players instead of players of Monopoly. When the U.S. and Israel attacked South Ossetia via their proxy Georgia on August 7, hope for Russia's cooperation with the Empire died. Enjoy winter, Europeans.

Richard, Morganton, USA

What's happening?

Outside investment, militarily and economically pours into Georgia... it then invades S. Ossetia, the US build missile bases in direct provocation and threaten to isolate Russia.

Diplomacy and rationality are dead.

We're in a whirlpool being dragged under by imbeciles.

Jez W, Leeds,

The Soviet Union has not changed its stripes.

M Bajer, london, UK

Of course, Nato trusted Russia too much. Considering that the Nato effort is stabilizing the Russian/Soviet borders, I think that if Nato left Afghanistan Russia would have more problems to clear./ I think this is the option that Nato should take. After all, none wants Nato there.

Anthony L, Chelmsford, UK

On one side of the table you have
Bush, Chenre and Brzezinski
On the other side you have
Medeved Putin and Gorbachev

How are you betting?

Hal O'Leary, Wheeling WV, USA

A logical chess move rather than poker; the surprising thing is that NATO is taken aback by each Putin move; perhaps Georgia could be utilized as a NATO base for Afghanistan; perhaps this move could be pretext for NATO to pull out of Afghanistan and let the Russians fight the Islamists to the South.

Dr Andris Lielmanis, Brampton, Canada.

Is the West gearing up for war with Russia?
Theres much to do considering we may not be able to back away from conflict?
Russia seems to be preparing for conflict ...deliberately.
She seems to have a plan to enact.

G Gibson, Sydney, Australia