Riga - The foreign and domestic policies of the Russian government continued to receive a mauling in the Latvian capital, Riga, Saturday with a trio of presidents joining other political figures in criticism of the Kremlin at a NATO-sponsored conference.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia claimed former Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him "he would make us Northern Cyprus" long before territorial disputes in South Ossetia turned into armed conflict in August.

Saakshvili reiterated that he was in no way to blame for his country's August war with Russia, calling accusations that he had acted first "a total lie."

He said that the consequences of the conflict were far from over.

"If Georgia was to fall, by 2013 Russia would control 60 per cent more oil and gas than they do now," Saakashvili predicted.

"Once they feel that they're through it, that they have digested it, that's when we'll have trouble."

The Georgian president also warned his Latvian and Estonian counterparts, Valdis Zatlers and Toomas Hendrik Ilves, that the "insurance policy" of their NATO membership remains untested. "I hope that it works," he said.

Earlier on Saturday afternoon, Boris Nemtsov, a one-time deputy prime minister of Russia under Vladimir Putin and now a leading opponent of his former boss, said: "Putinism means monopoly. Monopoly means corruption, no competition and no transparency.

"The only way to improve relations with Russia is to democratize Russia," Nemtsov said, adding that television was the most important of the Russian government's "monopolies" to such an extent that even his own mother had been persuaded to back Dmitry Medvedev as president.

He also claimed the Kremlin seriously intends the rouble to overtake the dollar and euro as the main world currency with Moscow as the financial centre of the world.

Five presidents were originally slated to appear at the Riga conference but President Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania and President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine both cancelled to deal with pressing domestic matters, leaving presidents Zatlers of Latvia, Ilves of Estonia and Saakashvili of Georgia as the most prominent attendees. (dpa)