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Russian defence chief General Yuri Baluyevsky arrives for a press conference, on May 15, 2008 at the end of a NATO-Russia council at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO countries are contributing to a 'destabilising' build-up of military power in ex-Soviet Georgia, the Russian defence ministry charged.'Members of NATO and other countries are gradually following the course of providing Georgia with large-scale military aid,' the ministry said in a statement. As Georgia has not ruled out the use of force against its rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, 'the build-up of the potential of the republic's military forces is having a destabilising influence on the... situation in the South Caucasus,' the statement said. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has vowed to regain control over the two Moscow-backed provinces, which broke from central control in wars in the 1990s, but has said he hopes to avoid any military conflict.
