Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that the Navy would track shipping in the Black Sea to defend the breakaway Abkhazia region from Georgia.

Lavrov’s warning is a further indication that regional tensions following last year’s five-day war with Georgia are not fading, days after an EU-commissioned report said there was a serious threat of further conflict.

“Georgian provocations in neutral waters toward the foreign ships that deliver cargo to Abkhazia, humanitarian, economic or any legal cargo are without doubt a serious concern,” Lavrov said during a visit to Abkhazia’s capital, Sukhumi, Interfax reported.

Russian authorities earlier said they would detain any Georgian ship entering waters claimed by Abkhazia without permission, raising fears of naval skirmishes in the Black Sea.

“We believe that it will be possible to regulate the tracking of cargo, guaranteeing that they will be defended from provocations,” Lavrov said.

Russia’s coast guard said Sept. 21 that it had begun patrols off Abkhazia, where tensions are already running high over a Georgian blockade of the rebel-run territory.

Georgia is seizing cargo ships heading to and from the rebel region under a ban on unauthorized commercial and economic activity with its two rebel territories, adopted after last year’s conflict with Russia over South Ossetia.

Russian Navy ships were deployed off the Abkhaz coast during the war in August last year.

Russia has since recognized the two regions as independent countries, but so far only Nicaragua and Venezuela have followed Moscow’s lead.

Lavrov, meanwhile, confirmed that Abkhazia would adopt Russia’s +7 international dialing code, but he did not say when.

“Agreement has been reached on transferring Abkhazia from the telephone code of Georgia to the Russian code,” he said.

“Of course, we will continue working with international organizations to provide Abkhazia with a separate code,” he said.

Landline telephones in South Ossetia already carry the +7 code, and Russian mobile phone operators cover both regions.

Georgia condemned the move.

“The Georgian side urges the respective UN authorities to prevent these illegal actions of the Russian Federation,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

A report commissioned by the European Union and issued Wednesday said last year’s war was triggered by an unjustified Georgian assault on South Ossetia on the evening of Aug. 7 after a long period of increasing tensions and provocations.

It said Russia’s military response went beyond reasonable limits and violated international law, but that Georgian claims of a large-scale Russian invasion before Tbilisi’s Aug. 7 assault had not been substantiated.