RUSSIA ACCUSES CHENEY OF ULTERIOR MOTIVES IN VISIT

Associated Press Worldstream
September 3, 2008 Wednesday 11:04 AM GMT

A Russian security official says U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is
seeking U.S. access to oil and gas during a trip to the resource-rich
Caucasus.

Nikolai Patrushev says the goal of Cheney’s visit to Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Ukraine is to trade U.S. support for energy supplies.

He says the U.S. had to ensure these countries had "corresponding
regimes" in order to make that happen.

Patrushev is the head of Russia’s powerful presidential Security
Council, and is in the Armenian capital of Yerevan for a meeting of
a Moscow-led bloc called the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Patrushev said Wednesday that the seven-member bloc had unanimously
backed Russia’s actions in its short war with Georgia last month.