President Francois Hollande will visit Georgia shortly, his foreign minister announced Thursday as France seeks to boost ties with the small ex-Soviet country that stands in the shadow of its giant neighbor Russia.

The French leader's visit -- due in May -- comes at a time when the European Union is seeking to boost ties with countries lying to its east, and as the West and Russia exchange increasingly strident barbs over the crisis in Ukraine where Moscow has already annexed the Crimean peninsula.

President Barack Obama said Thursday Russia was not abiding by the letter or the spirit of the Geneva deal to ease tensions in Ukraine, and said new sanctions against Moscow were already teed up.

The president weighed into an increasingly bitter U.S.-Russian dispute over the actions of separatist militias in the east of the country Washington says are backed by the Kremlin, during his tour of Asia.

Ukraine's going ahead with its May 25 presidential election without consulting first with pro-Russian voters "is very destructive for the country," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday in an interview with state-controlled RT television.

He said Moscow would only "recognize something that would be based on the all-inclusive process", adding, "to call an election without finding some common ground with the east and the south of Ukraine I think is very destructive for the country."

Kosovo's parliament approved on Wednesday the establishment of an international court to deal with alleged crimes committed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas during the 1998-1999 war with Serbia.

The vote came amid a mounting pressure on Pristina to back an EU call to create a special court to address the allegations detailed in a 2011 Council of Europe report on crimes committed by pro-independence ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Russia issued a sharp warning on Wednesday that it will strike back if its "legitimate interests" in Ukraine are attacked, raising the stakes in the Cold War-like duel with the United States over the former Soviet republic's future.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's interior ministry said the military has "liberated" the eastern town of Svyatogorsk from pro-Kremlin separatists.

The U.S. State Department said it was "deeply concerned" Wednesday over reports about the kidnapping of an American journalist by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

"We are deeply concerned about the reports of a kidnapping of a U.S. citizen journalist in Slavyansk, Ukraine, reportedly at the hands of pro-Russian separatists," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

Western leaders should set aside their differences with Russia over Ukraine to focus on the growing threat of Islamic extremism, former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday.

In a speech in London, the Middle East envoy said the spread of extremist ideology in that region as well as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and North Africa "represents the biggest threat to global security of the 21st century".

Russia issued a blunt warning Wednesday it would respond if its interests are attacked in Ukraine, as pro-Kremlin rebels in the restive east of the country braced for a new military offensive by Kiev.

The threat by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, recalling the 2008 war with Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia, came as U.S. troops were headed to region in a show of force after Washington again warned Moscow of new sanctions over the escalating crisis.

Russia has freed three Georgian spies who were arrested after the 2008 war, a Georgian official said Tuesday, signaling a nascent thaw between the arch-foes.

"Three people convicted in Russia as Georgian intelligence agents were freed recently," deputy foreign minister David Zalkaliani told a news conference, but declined to give further details.

Russia is ready to face a new round of Western sanctions over Ukraine, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday.

"I am sure we will be able to minimize their consequences," he said in a televised speech to parliament.