At an emergency meeting in Brussels, NATO members have called on Russia to respect their peace deal with Georgia and pull out its troops. Russian troops continues to occupy parts of Georgia, and Russian checkpoints now block Georgia’s main east-west highway. At the NATO meeting, the Bush administration suggested punishing Russia by suspending alliance ministerial meetings with Moscow. On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Russia is playing a “very dangerous game” with the US and its allies. But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev defended Russia’s response to Georgia’s aggression in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Dmitry Medvedev: “If anyone thinks that they can kill our citizens and escape unpunished, we will never allow this. If anyone tries this again, we will come out with a crushing response. And we have all the resources at our disposal for such a response: economic, political and military.”