TBILISI, Georgia - Western leaders warned Russia on Wednesday to
"change course," hoping to keep a conflict that already threatens a
key nuclear pact and could even raise U.S. chicken prices from
blossoming into a new Cold War.

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Moscow said it was NATO expansion and Western support for Georgia that
was causing the new East-West divisions, and Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin lashed out at the United States for using military ships to
deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.

Meanwhile, Georgia slashed its embassy staff in Moscow to protest
Russia's recognition of the two separatist enclaves that were the
flashpoint for the five-day war between the two nations earlier this
month.

The tensions have spread to the Black Sea, which Russia shares
unhappily with three nations that belong to NATO and two others that
desperately want to, Ukraine and Georgia. Some Ukrainians fear Moscow
might set its sights on their nation next.

In moves evocative of Cold War cat-and-mouse games, a U.S. military
ship carrying humanitarian aid docked at a southern Georgian port, and
Russia sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to a port farther
north in a show of force.

The maneuvering came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had
said his nation was "not afraid of anything, including the prospect of
a Cold War." For the two superpowers of the first Cold War, the United
States and Russia, repercussions from this new conflict could be
widespread.

Russia's agriculture minister said Moscow could cut poultry and pork
import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, hitting American
producers hard and thereby raising prices for American shoppers.

Russians sometimes refer to American poultry imports as "Bush's legs,"
a reference to the frozen chicken shipped to Russia amid economic
troubles following the 1991 Soviet collapse, during George H.W. Bush's
presidency.

And a key civil nuclear agreement between Moscow and Washington
appears likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest.

On the diplomatic front, the West's denunciations of Russia grew
louder.

Britain's top diplomat equated Moscow's offensive in Georgia with the
Soviet tanks that invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring
democratic reforms in 1968, and demanded Russia "change course."

"The sight of Russian tanks in a neighboring country on the 40th
anniversary of the crushing of the Prague Spring has shown that the
temptations of power politics remain," Foreign Secretary David
Miliband said.

Western leaders have accused Russia of using inappropriate force when
it sent tanks and troops into Georgia earlier this month. The Russian
move followed a Georgian crackdown on the pro-Russian South Ossetia.

Many of the Russian forces that drove deep into Georgia after fighting
broke out Aug. 7 have pulled back, but hundreds are estimated to still
be manning checkpoints that Russia calls "security zones" inside
Georgia proper.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev in a phone call to immediately fulfill the EU-brokered cease-
fire by pulling all troops out of Georgia.

The Kremlin rejected Western criticism, and Tuesday even suggested the
conflict could spread. It starkly warned another former Soviet
republic, tiny Moldova, that aggression against a breakaway region
there could provoke a military response.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Russia of trying to redraw
the borders of Georgia. His foreign minister went further, suggesting
Russia had engaged in "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia, one of the
two Georgian rebel territories.

And the seven nations that along with Russia make up the G-8 issued a
statement that underlined Russia's growing estrangement from the
West.

The seven — United States, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and
Italy — said Russia's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia
as independent countries violated the Georgia's territorial
integrity.

On Tuesday officials had told The Associated Press that the G-7 were
weighing whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8 by
throwing Moscow out.

Georgia's prime minister put damage from the Russian war at about $1
billion but said it did not fundamentally undermine the Georgian
economy. Georgia, which has a national budget of about $3 billion,
hopes for substantial Western aid to recover.

The United Nations has estimated nearly 160,000 people had to flee
their homes, but hundreds have returned to Georgian cities like Gori
in the past week.

In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, boxes of aid were sorted, stacked
and loaded onto trucks Wednesday for some of the tens of thousands of
people still displaced by the fighting. Some boxes were stamped "USAID
— from the American People."

In the Black Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons
of humanitarian aid, docked in Batumi. The missile destroyer USS
McFaul was there earlier this week delivering aid, and the U.S.
planned to leave it in the Black Sea for now.

A spokesman for Putin, quoted by Interfax news agency, observed:
"Military ships are hardly a common way to deliver such aid."

The U.S. has used military ships to deliver humanitarian aid before,
including in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The U.S. Embassy in Georgia had earlier said the Dallas was headed to
the port city of Poti but then retracted the statement. A Georgian
official said the port in Poti could have been mined by Russian
forces.

Poti's port reportedly suffered heavy damage from the Russian
military. In addition, Russian troops have established checkpoints on
the northern approach to the city, and a U.S. ship docking there could
have been seen as a direct challenge.

Meanwhile, the Russian missile cruiser Moskva and two smaller missile
boats anchored at the port in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, some
180 miles north of Batumi. The Russian Navy says the ships will be
involved in peacekeeping operations.

Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that NATO has already
exhausted the number of forces it can have in the Black Sea, according
to international agreements, and warned Western nations against
sending more ships.

"Can NATO — which is not a state located in the Black Sea —
continuously increase its group of forces and systems there? It turns
out that it cannot," Nogovitsyn was quoted as saying Wednesday by
Interfax.