Russia’s anger over NATO’s expansion has boiled over in recent months, with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin and other leaders denouncing the alliance as an aggressive and destabilizing force on its borders. In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry criticized Mr. Cheney’s similar promises of membership in the alliance to Georgia and its president, Mikheil Saakashvili.  “Statements of this kind and new promises to Tbilisi of fast NATO membership only strengthen the dangerous feeling of impunity of the Saakashvili regime and encourage its aggressive ambitions,” a spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko, said.  Russia has blamed Mr. Saakashvili for inciting last month’s brief war by trying to seize control of South Ossetia on the night of Aug. 7.  The Bush administration has vigorously lobbied the alliance to offer “membership action plans” to Ukraine and Georgia and considers the alliance’s expansion an important part of President Bush’s “freedom agenda.” The NATO allies, led by Germany and others wary of aggravating Russia, balked at that in April at the alliance’s summit meeting in Bucharest, though a final statement included a promise that both countries could eventually join the alliance.  While the United States and most European countries have uniformly denounced Russia’s invasion, as well as its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, there has been no collective agreement on how strongly to respond. Even within the Bush administration, the matter is evidently still largely unsettled, though the administration has been very supportive of Georgia and Ukraine diplomatically, and has granted Georgia an aid package of $1 billion.  A senior administration official traveling with Mr. Cheney said he believed that NATO would rethink its position on Georgia and Ukraine when the alliance’s foreign ministers met again in December. “People have been shaken by events in Georgia,” the official said. “It has created a new situation. I think there are some indications that some of the allies are looking with a fresh set of eyes.”  The official said the Bush administration would expend “an awful lot of energy” in its remaining months in office to build support for bringing Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance.  In Avignon, France, the European Union’s foreign ministers met to discuss relations with Russia and Ukraine, and signaled a less confrontational approach than the United States.  At a news conference, France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said that it was vital to coordinate policy with the United States but that Europe saw its relationship with Russia, a large and close neighbor, differently from the way Washington did.  “Of course, Mr. Cheney, the vice president, has a certain sense of protecting the people,” he said when asked about Mr. Cheney’s visit to Ukraine. “I’m not so sure that with this sense of protecting the people he has got a lot of success.”  The European Union is to hold a summit meeting with Ukraine on Tuesday, after a senior delegation visits Moscow to try to enforce the French-brokered cease-fire agreement between Russia and Georgia. European countries are discussing how warm an embrace to give Ukraine after the Georgian fiasco.  Joining NATO has been a principal policy objective of Mr. Yushchenko since he became president after public protests in 2004 that became known as the Orange Revolution. But membership is far from popular in Ukraine, where a majority of people remain hostile to the idea of splitting so sharply with Russia.  Differences over NATO and the war in Georgia contributed to political tensions here. Those issues and a new effort last week to weaken the president’s powers splintered the fragile alliance between Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko, raising the prospect of a new round of elections.  Mr. Cheney stepped carefully around Ukraine’s internal political disputes, the administration official said, but in public he urged the two leaders to unite. “Ukraine’s best hope to overcome these threats is to be united — united domestically, first and foremost, and united with other democracies,” he said.  A cold-war-like confrontation on the Black Sea continued Friday when the Mount Whitney, the flagship of the United States Navy’s Mediterranean fleet, anchored outside the Georgian port of Poti with a delivery of tons of aid supplies.  Russian troops remained stationed on the outskirts of Poti in what the Kremlin has called a security zone that stretches deep inside Georgian territory. The Russians no longer patrol the city itself, and the port is functioning normally, said a spokesman for Georgia’s Interior Ministry. The Mount Whitney began unloading its cargo uneventfully.  Reporting was contributed by Michael Schwirtz from Tbilisi, Georgia; Clifford Levy from Moscow; Steven Erlanger from Avignon, France; Stephen Castle from Brussels; and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.  Reporting was contributed by Michael Schwirtz from Tbilisi, Georgia; Clifford J. Levy from Moscow; Steven Erlanger from Avignon, France; Stephen Castle from Brussels; and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: With Eye on Russia, Ukraine’s Leader Presses Cheney on Joining NATO. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
As tensions with Moscow continued over Russia’s invasion of Georgia last month, Vice President Dick Cheney asserted America’s claim to act as a guarantor in a country that was part of the former Soviet Union.