Russia has expressed bewilderment over the statement made by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in his address to graduates of the Georgian National Defense Academy, in which he called on them to \"be ready for a large-scale foreign aggression on Georgian soil,\" Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told reporters on Tuesday. The text of Yakovenko\'s speech has been posted on the ministry\'s website. \"If the Georgian president meant Russia, it is absolutely unclear and unacceptable. It is Russia that has been working hard for the past 12 years to prevent bloodshed from happening again and to prevent a brother-killing war between the people of Ossetia and Georgia,\" Yakovenko said. \"It is not a secret to anyone, and Tbilisi knows this, that it is the Joint Peacekeeping Forces, the backbone of which is made up of the Russian contingent, that has prevented the situation in the conflict area from getting out of control,\" he said. \"The Russian contingent remains reserved even now, despite attempts to destabilize the situation and provoke an outburst of violence,\" the diplomat said. \"We can only guess why unsubstantiated statements on foreign aggression were needed in this situation,\" Yakovenko said. \"Such statements are made when Russia is not only calling on its neighbors for peace, but is proposing quite specific measures on the negotiating table, which can help stabilize the situation,\" Yakovenko said. Commenting on Saakashvili\'s statement that Georgia \"stretched a friendly hand to Russia in January, but no one has given us a hand of friendship in response yet,\" Yakovenko said: \"It is hard to comment on such statements. I will only recall that the Georgian administration, in its statements on Russian-Georgian relations, noted the help and support that Russia has been giving to Georgia, and not only in times of need.\" \"Words of friendship should be followed by practical steps. We expect this from Tbilisi, which is very well aware of Moscow\'s proposals on normalizing bilateral relations through a comprehensive settlement of all problems that still exist in them,\" Yakovenko said. (Interfax)