Moscow - President Dmitry Medvedev has announced a comprehensive modernization of Russia's armed forces and its nuclear weapons, Russian media reported Saturday.

By 2020, there would be complete overhaul of the nuclear deterrent, Medvedev said at the conclusion of military exercises in the Urals.

The plans include a new generation of nuclear submarines and cruise missiles, as well as better coordination of the country's missile defence system with reconnaissance satellites in space.

Recent events in Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia had brought the security situation to a head, he said.

Moscow  - President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday repudiated what he said were the West's efforts to drop a new "Iron Curtain" before Russia and blamed NATO for sparking war last month in Georgia.

"We are in effect being pushed down a path that is not based on a full-fledged, civilized partnership with other countries, but on autonomous development, behind deaf walls, behind an Iron Curtain," Medvedev said in a speech to civil society groups in Moscow.

Moscow - President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday pledged military protection for Georgia's regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as he signed a partnership accord with the governments of both breakaway provinces.

"We will give each other all necessary support, including military support," Medvedev said in language formalized in the text of the agreements.

"With a view of safety of the signatories ... each party will give the other the right to build, utilize and modernize military infrastructure and army bases on its territory," Russian news agencies quoted the agreement as saying.

Moscow - Russian President Dmitri Medvedev accused the United States on Saturday of delivering weapons to Georgia under the cover of humanitarian aid.

Speaking at an executive committee session of Russia's largely advisory State Council, Medvedev said the West should stop arming Georgia and support Russia's position in the South Caucasus conflict.

"It would be interesting to see how (the United States) would react if we used battleships to bring aid to the Caribbean islands recently hit by hurricanes," Medvedev was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Moscow - President Dmitry Medvedev hosted the heads of six ex-Soviet states at the summit of military alliance in Moscow in an effort to bolster support in Russia's standoff with the West over Georgia.

The presidents of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a loose Soviet-era alliance Moscow hopes to shape into a military counterweight to NATO, were set to sign a statement Friday criticizing Georgia's military campaign.

Moscow - Just hours before a European Union emergency summit on the crisis in Georgia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy discussed the situation on the telephone, the agency Interfax reported late Sunday.

The two leaders focussed on the disputed buffer zones held by the Russian Army on Georgian territory along the two breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, according to the report from Interfax, which cited presidium officials in Moscow.