Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev today said it would be "no great loss" if Nato decided to call off its relationship with Moscow, adding that the Kremlin was unconcerned by possible sanctions from the west over its invasion of Georgia.

Medvedev said ties with Nato had "worsened sharply" following the war in Georgia earlier this month, which he said came from Georgian "aggression".

"We are ready to take any decision [from Nato], up to halting relations altogether," Medvedev declared.

Speaking in Sochi, where he was meeting Russia's hawkish ambassador to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, Medvedev said "collaboration" with Nato was more in the alliance's interests than Russia's. "If this breaks nothing terrible will happen to us," he noted.

Medvedev's comments signal a further deterioration in Russia's already fraught relations with the west. He spoke after MPs from Russia's upper and lower houses voted this morning to back independence for Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

France's president Nicholas Sarkozy has convened a special EU meeting on Georgia to consider future relations with Moscow. It comes amid growing European dismay at Russia's failure to comply with the ceasefire agreement and pull out all of its troops. The US vice president, Dick Cheney, will also visit Tbilisi next week.

Yesterday the Germans - who together with the rest of the EU, continue to insist on Georgia's territorial integrity - condemned the Russian votes as unhelpful. They were "in no way appropriate to either calming or defusing tensions," the German government said.

Russia's upper house, or Federation Council, voted 130-0 to call on Medvedev to support South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence. The Duma passed the same motion 447-0. Both houses are known for their slavish loyalty to the Kremlin.

Several MPs compared Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili to Hitler - likening his incursion earlier this month into South Ossetia to the Nazi's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh thanked Medvedev for his "courageous" support, adding: "It's a historic day."

Russia has previously stopped short of recognizing the regions' independence. But Moscow is now likely to use the votes to pressure the international community to accept that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are no different from Kosovo - which won US-backed independence in February, despite vehement opposition from Russia and Belgrade.

Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, recently indicated a change by saying that Georgia could "forget about" its territorial integrity. But promoting separatism in the Caucasus holds dangers for Russia - which faces growing insurgencies in its own southern ethnic republics, and has fought two brutal wars battling separatism in Chechnya.

One analyst yesterday said he though it unlikely the Kremlin would unilaterally recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence. "This would be more troublesome and problematic for Russia," Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs said.

Russia's preferred "scenario" would be for both territories to eventually win Kosovo-style acceptance, he said, rather than suffer the lingering unresolved fate of Turkish-backed North Cyprus. "My guess is that this vote is a means to achieve better conditions for international negotiations," he added.

Georgia national security council secretary, Alexander Lomaia, said the Kremlin would isolate itself if it recognised the regions, which have enjoyed de facto independence since civil wars in the early 1990s.

"If it does this Russia will further isolate itself from the entire world, and will force the international community to seek more active ways to restore the territorial integrity of Georgia," he told Reuters.

Georgia today said Russian troops continued to occupy much of the country. In the Black Sea port of Poti, Russian soldiers rolled into the port terminal and took away computers and photocopiers in armoured personnel carriers, Georgian officials said.

The deputy chief of Russia's army staff, Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said his troops were merely performing peacekeeping duties. He said the EU-brokered ceasefire deal allowed them to be there, despite the fact it calls for Russian forces to go back to the positions they occupied before the war started.

Nogovitsyn said Russian troops were needed in Poti, not least because of the arrival in the area of Nato ships. "The fact that there are nine western warships in the Black Sea cannot but be a cause for concern," he suggested.