“The reaction will be calm without any hysteria. But there will of course be a reaction,” Putin told journalists during a visit to Uzbekistan.

Putin on Tuesday also praised what he called the “common sense” shown by the European Union in its response to Russia`s conflict with ex-Soviet Georgia.

“Thank God, common sense prevailed. We saw no extreme conclusions and proposals, and this is very good,” Putin said in comments shown on NTV television.

“We have a basis for continuing dialogue with our European partners.”

Mr Putin apparently quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.
Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too,” a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news.

Footage of the former KGB spy, who cultivated a macho image during his eight years as the Kremlin chief, showed him striding through the taiga in camouflage and desert boots before grappling with the tiger.

Mr Putin helped measure the Amur tiger`s incisors before placing a satellite transmitter around the neck of the beast, which can weigh up to 450 kg.

The scenes were reminiscent of the photographs released last year that showed the leader stripped to the waist in a series of macho hunting poses.

The Amur tiger, the world`s biggest wild cat, has recently pounced back from the brink of extinction to hit its highest population level for at least 100 years, the WWF said last year.

Putin thanked Western researchers for being involved in programmes to save the Amur tigers.

“First of all, we must thank our colleagues, Americans, European colleagues for being involved with this during a difficult time for Russia when no-one was paying any attention to this,” Mr Putin said.

As president Mr Putin redrew a planned oil pipeline route to avoid Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world, and scrapped plans for an Olympic village near Sochi that could have damaged local flora and fauna.

The White House said Russia would face consequences for its continuing military presence in Georgia.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told CNN that US citizens had been in the conflict zone of South Ossetia.

He said his defence officials had told him the provocation was to benefit one of the US presidential candidates.

Georgia tried to retake the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia this month by force after a series of clashes.

Russian forces subsequently launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, and an EU-brokered ceasefire.

Diplomatic wrangling

Mr Putin said in the US television network interview: “The fact is that US citizens were indeed in the area in conflict during the hostilities.

“It should be admitted that they would do so only following direct orders from their leaders.”

Mr Putin added: “The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army.

“Why… seek a difficult compromise solution in the peacekeeping process? It is easier to arm one of the sides and provoke it into killing another side. And the job is done.

“The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US president,” he said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino rejected the allegation.

“To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate – it sounds not rational,” she said.

“Those claims first and foremost are patently false, but it also sounds like his defence officials who said they believed this to be true are giving him really bad advice.”

Diplomatic wrangling over Russia`s actions in Georgia continued on Thursday with the Georgian parliament urging its government to cut diplomatic ties with Moscow.

Earlier, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested some EU countries were considering sanctions against Russia.

Mr Kouchner insisted France had made no proposals for sanctions itself but, as current president of the EU, would aim to get consensus among all 27 countries of the bloc if sanctions were envisaged.

France has called an emergency EU summit on Monday to reassess relations with Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described talk of sanctions as the working of “a sick imagination”.

Such talk was an emotional response that demonstrated Western confusion over the situation, he said.

The US has said it is now considering scrapping a US-Russia civilian nuclear co-operation pact in response to the conflict.

The White House has also announced that up to $5.75m (£3.1m) will be freed to help Georgia meet “unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs”.

`Specious`

Late on Thursday, the UN held an open meeting to discuss the situation in Georgia but it descended into an angry exchange.

Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, launched a scathing attack on some council members.

He questioned their criticism of the use of force, asking the US representative: “Did you find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?”

He compared council members` defence of the territorial integrity of states with what he said was a failure to do so for Serbia over Kosovo.

US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said such “specious comparisons cannot detract from the facts before us”.

He said Russia had invaded Georgia and was “dismembering” Georgia.

Irakli Alasania, Georgia`s ambassador to the UN, said Russia`s actions were “all pre-planned”.

He called for swift humanitarian aid and a UN presence in upper Abkhazia.

Requests for representatives of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to participate in the formal council meeting were rejected.

BBC

In an exclusive interview with CNN`s Matthew Chance in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Thursday, Putin said the U.S. had encouraged Georgia to attack the autonomous region of South Ossetia.

Putin said his defense officials had told him it was done to benefit a presidential candidate — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are competing to succeed George W. Bush — although he presented no evidence to back it up.

“U.S. citizens were indeed in the area in conflict,” Putin said. “They were acting in implementing those orders doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader.”

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino blasted Putin`s statements, saying they were “patently false.”

“To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate just sounds not rational,” she said.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood concurred and labeled Putin`s statements “ludicrous.”

“Russia is responsible for the crisis,” Wood said in an off-camera meeting with reporters in Washington on Thursday. “For the Russians to say they are not responsible for what happened in Georgia is ludicrous. … Russia is to blame for this crisis, and the world is responding to what Russia has done.”

When told that many diplomats in the United States and Europe blame Russia for provoking the conflict and for invading Georgia, Putin said Russia had no choice but to invade Georgia after dozens of its peacekeepers in South Ossetia were killed. He told Chance it was to avert a human calamity.

The former Russian president, still considered the most powerful man in the country, said he was disappointed that the U.S. had not done more to stop Georgia`s attack.

Putin recalled that he was watching the situation in Georgia and South Ossetia unfold when he was at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games on August 8.

He said he spoke to U.S. President Bush, also attending, who told the Russian prime minister he didn`t want war, but Putin spoke of his disappointment that the U.S. administration didn`t do more to stop Georgia early in the conflict.

Also Thursday, Putin announced economic measures that he said were unrelated to the fighting with Georgia. Nineteen U.S. poultry meat companies would be banned from exporting their products to Russia because they had failed health and safety tests, and 29 other companies had been warned to improve their standards or face the same ban, Putin said.

Putin said Russia`s health and agricultural ministries had randomly tested the poultry products and found them to be full of antibiotics and arsenic.

Putin repeated that the bans were not related to the Georgian conflict, but they indicate the measures that some Western countries — particularly in Europe — fear if Russia goes on a diplomatic offensive.

Russia is trying to counterbalance mounting pressure from the West over its military action in Georgia and its recognition of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

But Russia`s hopes of winning international support for its actions in Georgia were dashed Thursday, when China and other Asian nations expressed concern about tension in the region.

The joint declaration from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, said the countries hoped that any further conflict could be resolved peacefully.

“The presidents reaffirmed their commitment to the principles of respect for historic and cultural traditions of every country and efforts aimed at preserving the unity of a state and its territorial integrity,” the declaration said, The Associated Press reported.

“Placing the emphasis exclusively on the use of force has no prospects and hinders a comprehensive settlement of local conflicts,” AP quoted the group as saying.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had appealed to the group at a summit in Tajikistan on Thursday to support its actions, saying it would serve as a “serious signal for those who are trying to justify the aggression.”

On Wednesday, a U.S. ship carrying aid docked in Georgia, while Britain`s Foreign Secretary David Miliband traveled to the Ukraine, which is worried about Russia`s intentions in the region, to offer the UK`s support.

Miliband 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,” AP reported.

CNN

He recalled the Srebrenica massacre, when thousands were killed when Dutch peacekeepers didn’t intervene in the Balkan war.

The Prime Minister insisted that the Georgian government should be held responsible for its action.

“Speaking about the Georgian leadership, people who wreck the territorial integrity and national identity of their country with their actions shouldn’t be ruling that country, be it big or small. They should resign straight away,” he said.

”Of course, it’s up to them, but we all remember the precedents that we have in history. Let’s remember how U.S. troops entered Iraq, and what they did with Saddam Hussein for destroying several Shiite villages. Here, ten Ossetian villages were destroyed right out,” Putin told ARD TV.

“I think a country like Russia, that protected its citizens, and fulfilled its peacekeeping duties, won’t be held in isolation, no matter what our partners think within the limits of their bloc. Europe and the U.S. are not the whole world,” he said