The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said what Russia has done was “well beyond anything that is needed” for protection of its peacekeepers and population in South Ossetia, Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, said at a press conference on August 13.

In strongly worded remarks made few hours after the U.S. President Bush’s August 13 statement on Georgia, Rice said: “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russian tank threatened its neighbors, occupying the capital, overthrow the government and get away with it; things have changed.”

“When you start bombing ports and bombing city like Gori… that is well beyond anything that is needed to protect Russian peacekeepers and that is why Russia is starting to face international condemnation for what it is doing.”

Rice has again called on Russia to follow its commitment on ceasefire. “Those operations must stop and must stop now,” she said.

She has also denied that sending of U.S. navy and military aircraft to shop humanitarian aid in Georgia was a sign that the United States planned to take control over of key facilities in Georgia.

President Saakashvili told CNN shortly after the U.S. Secretary Rice press conference that he was “satisfied” with her rhetoric. “She is absolutely right; this is an attempt to repeat 1968,” Saakashvili said.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said on August 13 as quoted by the Russian news agencies: “Russia has warned the United States that it was playing a dangerous game.”

He added that Moscow was warning Washington against arming Georgia, which, Lavrov, said was considering a military adventurism.