WASHINGTON, Sept 18: The West must stand up to “bullying” by Moscow and keep Russia from benefiting from its military move into Georgia, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a harshly-worded speech on Thursday.

In her first major address on Russia since its incursion into Georgia last month, Rice described Moscow as increasingly authoritarian and aggressive and said its aims in the Caucasus state would be frustrated.

“Russia’s leaders will not accomplish their primary war aim of removing Georgia’s government,” she said in excerpts released by the State Department ahead of the speech later on Thursday to the German Marshall Fund.

The United States and Europe must not allow what she called Russia’s aggression against the Georgian government of President Mikheil Saakashvili to achieve any benefit in Georgia or anywhere, she said.

“Our strategic goal now is to make it clear to Russia’s leaders that their choices are putting Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance,” Rice said.

“We cannot afford to validate the prejudices that some Russian leaders seem to have: that if you pressure free nations enough -- if you bully, and threaten, and lash out -- we will cave in, and forget, and eventually concede,” Rice said.

“The United States and Europe must stand up to this kind of behaviour, and all who champion it.”

Moscow drew international condemnation for sending troops to Georgia last month to stop Tbilisi’s attempt to reassert control over the pro-Russian, separatist region of South Ossetia. Moscow later recognized South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, as independent states.

However, Washington and its allies do not agree on how to handle Georgia’s pro-Western ambitions. Some European governments have misgivings about allowing Georgia to take the first step toward joining the Nato alliance, which the Bush administration supports.

The State Department said Rice had telephoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday and told him she would be giving the speech. “They spoke quite a bit about Georgia,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Rice, a former Soviet expert who has presided over a steady deterioration of relations with Russia, said Russia’s invasion of Georgia was part of a “worsening pattern of behaviour” that included its use of oil and gas as a political weapon, the suspension of a treaty on conventional forces in Europe, and a threat to target ‘peaceful nations’ with nuclear weapons.

“The picture emerging from this pattern of behaviour is that of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad,” she said.

Rice repeated previous US warnings that Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation was now in question, as well as its attempt to join the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

McCormack said Washington would continue to work with Moscow on issues such as pressuring Iran to suspend work on its nuclear programme.

In the excerpts, Rice noted Russia has found scant global backing for its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

“A pat on the back from Daniel Ortega and Hamas is hardly a diplomatic triumph,” she said, referring to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and the Palestinian movement Hamas.

Rice scoffed at Moscow’s dispatch of two long-range bombers known by the Nato code-name ‘Blackjack’ to Venezuela and its plans to send a nuclear battle cruiser to America’s backyard, the Caribbean, for exercises with the navy of Venezuela, whose leftist president Hugo Chavez is a long-time foe of Washington.

“We are confident that our ties with our neighbours ...will in no way be diminished by a few aging Blackjack bombers visiting one of Latin America’s few autocracies,” she said.—Reuters