We invaded Georgia to save lives says Medvedev

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The Kremlin's new leader used interviews with CNN, the BBC and an article in the Financial Times to get his message across to that he was determined to act to protect Russian interests.

Clearly under pressure from his predecessor Vladmir Putin to take a tough line, Mr Medvedev struck a hawkish tone while trying to claim that Moscow had been left with "no option" to intervene in South Ossetia after provocations by Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvilli.

Significantly, Mr Medvedev's strongest words came in an interview with a Russian TV station.

He told Russia Today: "We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War. But we don't want one."

Writing in today's FT, he stressed the alleged crimes of Georgian troops. He wrote: "Russia had no option but to crush the attack, to save lives. This was not a war of our choice. We have no designs on Georgian territory but we had to halt a murderous assault".

Mr Medvedev added that Moscow could not "stand idly by" while a "madman" - Mr Saakashvilli - launched an attack on "hundreds of peaceful civilians, many of them Russian citizens".

The Russian leader said that the West's granting of independence to Kosovo had made it impossible to deny a similar move by South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

He wrote: "In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others."

He claimed that the newly independent Georgia inflicted "a vicious war on its minority nations, displacing thousands and sowing seeds of discontent that could only grow.

"These were tinderboxes, right on Russia's doorstep, which Russian peacekeepers strove to keep from igniting."