Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said he is considering a number of options in ties with Nato including halting relations with the military alliance.

Mr Medvedev said: "We are ready to take any decision, up to halting relations altogether."

He said that such a decision would be difficult but that ties with Nato had "worsened sharply" as a result of the conflict with Georgia over its breakaway region South Ossetia.

The announcement has been met with concern by Britain.

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said: "Nato-Russian relations will need to take fully into account the implications of Russian military actions in Georgia.

"However we believe it would be a mistake to suspend all Nato-Russia contacts when they are so much needed."

The Foreign Office spokeswoman also expressed the British government's "regret" over a vote in Russia's lower house of parliament for Moscow to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Formal recognition by Russia of the independence of South Ossetia and the Black Sea province of Abkhazia would put it on a collision course with the United States and other Western nations, which insist on Georgia's territorial integrity.

Georgia and Russia fought a brief war earlier this month over South Ossetia after Tbilisi sent in troops to try to retake the province by force, provoking a massive counter-attack by land, sea and air from Moscow.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.