‘I would not like to specially recount what happened last year … and to what we were forced to give a tough and pretty effective response,’ Medvedev has repeated a warning to Georgia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Meanwhile a US warship has anchored off Georgia’s coast for joint war games.  Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has recently played down the threat of Russian military action: RFE/RL suggests US guarantees as an explanation, quoting sources claiming that Obama told Medvedev privately that any attack against Georgia would have ‘grave consequences‘ and that Washington ‘would not stand aside’ in such a conflict as it did during last year’s war.  Apparently Russia will not agree to harsher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program as part of the bargaining for the new START deal with Washington.