Blink and you could miss the Russian occupation of Poti, a Georgian port on the Black Sea.

The only visible sign of the great Russian bear is a small military outpost by the bridge leading into town where a few sweaty soldiers, dressed only in shorts, dig trenches around Soviet-era armoured vehicles.

Yet it is the very lack of a large Russian presence that emphasises the disturbing nature of the threat. While a single airstrike could wipe out the small base, it was nevertheless enough to deter two state-of-the-art US warships from trying to dock here for fear of triggering a regional conflagration.

The people of Poti know how quickly the Russians can return, recalling the invasion by land and sea this month that rapidly overwhelmed this small town. Despite their minor presence, the Russians still act as if they rule the place, residents said.

“The Russians sometimes leave their base and come here to take whatever they want,” said a Georgian customs officer overseeing the unloading of a cargo ship bringing cars from the Far East.

“They steal whatever they can carry and burn the rest,” he added. They had even made off with air conditioning units and other items for their base. They had taken other loot — and a dozen Georgian prisoners of war - back to the breakaway republic of Abkhazia up the coast.

Residents and police said that the Russians have not harassed civilians but had destroyed military bases in an apparent warning to the Government over its ambitions to join Nato.

Police said that the Russians had so far made no effort to enforce their threat to search incoming ships. Moscow had accused two US Navy warships that had been due to dock here several days ago, which turned back in the face of Russian hostility, of trying to smuggle weapons to rebuild the crushed Georgian Army. The White House dismissed the charges as ridiculous.

The Cold War rhetoric that has raised the tension yet further in this stand-off continued yesterday when Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, accused President Bush of orchestrating the war in Georgia in a plot to get John McCain elected to the White House.

“It is not just that the American side could not restrain the Georgian leadership from this criminal act,” he said. “The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian Army. Why spend years holding difficult negotiations and looking for complicated compromises in ethnic conflicts? It's easier to arm one of the parties and push it to kill the other party, and the job is done.”

Mr Putin said that his defence officials had told him that Americans were operating in the conflict zone during the fighting. He did not name Mr Bush directly but the White House swiftly denounced his allegations, made during an interview with CNN. His comments were also broadcast on Russian television.

By lending his authority to the claims, Mr Putin has raised tensions to a new level days before Dick Cheney, the US Vice President, is due to arrive in Georgia to show support for its pro-Western leader.

As the politicians traded accusations, in Poti the sense of helplessness and anger smouldered. “We don't want US ships to come here if it will start a war,” Vakho, a well-dressed man in his fifties, said. “It could trigger a battle and we don't want that. If the Russians and Americans want to fight, let them do it in their own countries — Georgia isn't a battlefield.”

Another man smoking on a porch on the quiet main street said: “We don't want Russians as peacekeepers. Some other neutral country should come in.”

A third man was more belligerent, frustrated by the foreign military presence in his town. “The Russians are fascist pigs. These pigs will go away but there's a big pig farm just across the border,” he said. “If Saakashvili can't make peace, then we should fight the Russians.”

The only public face of the Russian soldiers themselves was a short, apologetic private manning the makeshift gate to the base that his comrades were busy entrenching. “I don't like what happened but it's not my choice,” said the guard, who is under orders not to allow anyone into the base, for now scarcely more than a field with a few armoured vehicles and a Russian flag fluttering at its centre. “People should live in peace, but not everyone here agrees with me.”

The continued Russian presence is also irritating the international community. Tbilisi has railed against the remaining Russian troops while Nato has tried to calm nerves by denying claims that it is increasing its naval presence in the Black Sea.

“There is no Nato naval build-up in the Black Sea as Russian authorities are claiming,” an official said yesterday, adding that the five warships under its flag on the Black Sea were there for long-planned exercises. In Batumi, a sub-tropical port and resort town to the south of Poti, there was no sign of any US ships and life was going on as normal.

But in other resorts that dot the coast there was simmering anger at a tourist season ruined by the war. “Normally we'd have 50 guests at this time of year, this is when we make the money to tide us through the winter. But we have no guests, so I'm worried,” one guesthouse proprietor said.

The target of his ire was less the Russians than his own President, whom he blamed for having started a war with an unstoppable giant. “No one here likes him. You've got to be stupid to start a war with the Russians.”

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