Tensions are mounting on the Black Sea. Many commentators looking at the area are asking whether fresh conflict might be on the cards in the South Caucasus as a response to increased Russian support for Georgia's separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In an article for Britain's Guardian newspaper, Luke Harding writes that tiny Abkhazia could easily become "the new cold war frontline".

"This tranquil spot, on what was once a coast of the Soviet Union, may be about to become a flashpoint - not just between Georgia and its breakaway province of Abkhazia, which fought a war here in 1992-93, but between NATO and the Russian Federation," Harding says.

Russia has recently declared plans to strengthen economic ties with Abkhazia and is increasing consular support to residents there. For Harding, this is a provocative move that "stops short of recognising Abkhazia's claim to independence, but only just".

The move has incensed Georgia's pro-Western government. According to Harding, Russia's actions are best understood as both a reaction to Georgia's unsuccessful attempt to join NATO earlier this month as well as a rejoinder to what it call the United States' "illegal" recognition of Kosovo's independence.

Certainly, some Abkhaz residents seem to think fresh violence could result in the region.

"I think there is going to be a war," Jansukh Muratiya, head of security in the Abkhaz border town of Gal, told the Guardian. "How else is Georgia to resolve the Abkhaz problem?"

Yulia Latynina, a commentator for the St Petersburg Times, says Russia's claims to want to help the Abkhaz people ring hollow, and its real interest is in causing problems for Georgia.

But so far, conflict looks unlikely, given how heavy Georgia's losses could be.

"Starting a war with Abkhazia would amount to fighting an entire people, and this would entail unacceptable military and civilian casualties for Georgia. Since President Mikheil Saakashvili is attempting to build a democratic state, he would not be willing to sustain these losses," she writes.

Meanwhile, Mart Laar, writing for the Moscow Times, says that Russian support for Abkhazia and Georgia's other breakaway region, South Ossetia, is especially dangerous as it comes at a time of languishing hope over a peaceful settlement.

"Ignoring Moscow's Soviet-style land grab would intensify strife in the South Caucasus," he writes. "The threat of force is never deeply submerged. Last November, Georgia reported that additional T-72 tanks, Grad multiple-launch rocket systems, armored personnel carriers, howitzers and about 200 new Russian troops had appeared in Abkhazia."

For Laar, it's up to the West to stop the decline into bloodshed in the region, and stop Russia and Georgia clashing over the area.

"The West must awake and unite - not to oppose Russia or support Georgia, but to stand up for its ideals," he writes. "It must send Medvedev a strong signal that the path to better relations lies only in repudiating the Putin instruction and engaging on the Georgian peace proposals."

The prospects for a diplomatic resolution look increasingly slim, according to Salome Asatiani in an article for Radio Free Europe, an international news and broadcast organisation. Russia's persistent involvement in the region poses problems for peace, but so does Georgia's approach to the question of its breakaway provinces.

"The government rhetoric on the breakaway regions at times remains combative," she writes. Recent increases in Georgia's defence spending also add to Abkhazia and South Ossetia's worries about the signs coming from Tbilisi.

Nor does Georgia's insistence on restoring the country's "territorial integrity" help to promote a peaceful solution, she writes.

"We need to distinguish between conflict resolution and restoration of territorial integrity," Irakli Tabliashvili, the chairman of Abxaz-Info, a non-governmental association that supports media and information projects promoting a peaceful resolution of the conflict, told Radio Free Europe.

Pointing to the worrying conclusion of this strategy, Tabliashvili says: "The latter can still be achieved by Georgia's armed forces, and maybe the refugees can return as well. But if this happens in this way, the conflict between ethnic Georgians and ethnic Abkhaz will only deepen."

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