Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused the West on Saturday of acting provocatively in and around the Black Sea, where the US is using warships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.

“I wonder how they would like it if we sent humanitarian assistance using our navy to countries of the Caribbean that have suffered from the recent hurricanes,” Medvedev said. He added that a whole US fleet had been dispatched to deliver the aid.

The Russian president was speaking in an address to the State Council, a largely symbolic body comprising the country’s top federal officials, regional governors, industrial leaders and other influential elites.

The United States has used warships to ferry relief supplies to Georgia after the brief but intense war with Russia in early August, in part to send a signal to Moscow. Its biggest ship yet arrived on Friday, when the USS Mount Whitney dropped anchor off Georgia’s Russian-patrolled port of Poti. NATO has also rejected talk of a buildup of its warships in the Black Sea, saying their recent presence in the region was part of routine exercises.

Russia has accused U.S. warships of rearming Tbilisi’s defeated army, a charge dismissed by Washington as ridiculous.

Medvedev had earlier set out five principles of Russia’s foreign policy, including a readiness to abide by international law and a claim of special interests in specific areas around the globe. He said Russia was disappointed with the concerted Western condemnation of its operation in South Ossetia. We are under political pressure, but this is not something new for us, he said.