Russia Asks Obama To Change Course On Ukraine

`I would like to hope that the new people in the White House will learn from the mistakes of their predecessors`, Ryabkov said.

Russia on Monday called on incoming U.S. President Barack Obama to end Washington's "anti-Russian" policy of granting swift NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the policy had destabilised Ukraine and helped to spark last summer's war in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

"I would like to hope that the new people in the White House will learn from the mistakes of their predecessors," Ryabkov said in an interview published by the Foreign Ministry.

European states led by Germany and France blocked a U.S. drive at a NATO summit last year to grant Ukraine and Georgia a roadmap to membership.

Officials said neither country was ready and that membership would unnecessarily provoke Moscow, which considers the ex-Soviet countries as part of its zone of influence.

"We are not against bilateral relations between the United States and... Ukraine and Georgia," Ryabkov said.

"But at the same time we do not intend to close our eyes to a situation in which the vector of such ties begins to negatively influence Russian interests in the area of national security...."

"This relates in full to the essentially anti-Russian advancement of the policy of speedy NATO accession for Kiev and Tbilisi."

"Its costs are well-known to everyone," Ryabkov said, citing the "destabilisation" of Ukraine and Georgia's attack on South Ossetia.

Russian officials say that U.S. military aid to Georgia was taken by the country's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili as a sign of encouragement ahead of its attack last summer on South Ossetia, which was repelled by Russian forces.

Georgia argues it acted in self-defence, saying separatists had intensified shelling of Georgian villages and accusing Russia of sending in armour to support them. Tbilisi says it acted only after months of Russian provocation.

Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has championed membership of the military bloc, sparking anger in the pro-Russian east and south of the country.