Russia has increased political and military pressure on Georgia, which is a source of concern for the United States, Daniel Fried, the U.S. assistant secretary, said on June 18.

Speaking at a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Fried said the United States was “very concerned about these actions which challenge Georgia’s territorial integrity and have increased tensions in the separatist regions.”

“They risk igniting a wider conflict and call into question Russia’s role as a peacekeeper and facilitator of negotiations between Georgia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia respectively.”

In his testimony to the U.S. House committee hearing - The Caucasus: Frozen Conflicts and Closed Borders – the U.S. official said that Russia’s recent measures that were of concern included the April 16 decision to establish closer ties between Russian ministries and their Abkhaz and South Ossetian counterparts; downing of the Georgian reconnaissance drone by a Russian fighter jet; sending “highly-trained airborne combat troops with howitzers” to Abkhazia as part of its peacekeeping force “without consulting Georgia” in late April and in late May dispatching Russian Railway Forces to Abkhazia to repair railway infrastructure in the breakaway region.

He also said that Russian investors were buying property in Abkhazia “in disregard of Georgian law.” “Some of these properties may have belonged to displaced persons, making their eventual return even more difficult,” Fried said.

He also pointed out that Russian banks maintained correspondent relationships with “unlicensed and virtually unregulated Abkhaz banks, an open invitation to money launderers.”

The U.S. official said that as Georgia had expressed its desire to join NATO, Tbilisi “has been subjected to unremitting and dangerous pressure from Russia.” “Georgia has made a choice to join NATO. The United States and the nations of NATO welcome this choice, and Georgia’s neighbors should respect it,” he said.

“We do not believe that any outside power – neither Russia nor any other – should have a sphere of influence over these countries [referring to the Black Sea and Caucasus regions]; no outside power should be able to threaten, pressure, or block the sovereign choice of these nations to join with the institutions of Europe and the transatlantic family if they so choose and we so choose.”

But he also stressed that the United States “does not seek to exclude Russia from this region.”

“That would be neither wise nor possible,” Fried added.