MOSCOW, Sept 1: Russia warned the West on Monday against supporting Georgia’s leadership and called for an arms embargo against the ex-Soviet republic until a different government is in place.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks are likely to anger the United States and Europe and enrage Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. He made it clear Moscow wants Saakashvili out of power in Georgia.

“If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions,” he said.

“For a start it would be right to impose an embargo on weapons to this regime, until different authorities turn Georgia a normal state,” he said in an address at Russia’s top foreign policy graduate school.

Lavrov spoke as the European Union prepared for a summit on Monday to discuss the Georgia crisis and further relations with Russia.

“Today’s EU summit should clear up a great deal. We hope the choice they make will be based on Europe’s fundamental interests,” he said. He said Russia’s relations with Nato are facing a “moment of truth.”

Russia’s ties to the West have been driven to their lowest point since the Soviet collapse of 1991 by the war last month in Georgia, where Saakashvili angered Moscow by courting the West and seeking Nato membership.

Russia repelled a Georgian offensive against the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia and sent troops, tanks and bombers deep into undisputed Georgian territory, where some still maintain positions. Moscow last week recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent countries.

The United States and Europe have accused Russia of using disproportionate force and of violating the terms of a ceasefire that called for the sides to withdraw their forces to pre-conflict positions. They have also denounced Russia’s recognition of the separatist regions, saying Georgia’s borders must remain intact.

Russia says it was provoked. Russian peacekeeping forces were stationed in South Ossetia before the war and Moscow had given most of South Ossetia’s residents Russian passports in recent years, enabling the Kremlin to argue that it was defending its citizens when it responded to Georgia’s Aug 7 offensive in the separatist province.

“With its reaction to the Georgian aggression, Russia has set a certain standard of responding that fully complies with international law,” Lavrov said.

Russian soldiers, he said, followed “our deeply Christian tradition of dying for our friends.”

The reactions of some Western countries to the crisis “illustrates a deficit of morality,” he said.

“It’s high time for Europe to get back to simple, non-politicized and non-geopolitical values,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov reserved particular criticism for the United States, which has trained Georgian troops, saying such aid had failed to give the United States sufficient leverage to restrain the Georgian government. Instead, he said, “It encouraged the irresponsible and unpredictable regime in its gambles.”—AP