MOSCOW — Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Georgia is preparing for military operations against Abkhazia as the Defense Ministry vowed a “tough response” to any Georgian use of force in two separatist regions.

“Any attempt by Georgia to use force to resolve the conflicts, to adopt forceful measures against Russian peacekeepers or Russian citizens located on the territory of Abkhazia or South Ossetia, will meet with a suitable and tough response,” the Defense Ministry said yesterday on its Web site.

President Saakashvili of Georgia accuses Russia of backing separatist regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have pro-Russian leaderships and where Russian peacekeepers are stationed. Mr. Saakashvili pledges to bring the regions, which broke away from Georgia during wars in the 1990s, back under central-government control. Most of their citizens hold Russian passports.

The Georgian deputy Defense minister, Batu Kutelia, declined to comment on the Russian statement when contacted by telephone in the capital, Tbilisi. He said yesterday the ministry planned to issue a response later in the day.

Georgia has massed more than 1,500 soldiers and police officers in the Kodori gorge area of Abkhazia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its Web site yesterday.

“Analysis of the composition of forces present in this region allows us to conclude that a base is being prepared for the start of a military operation against Abkhazia,” the ministry said.

Abkhazia’s capital, Sukhumi, is located about 62 miles from Sochi, the Russian Black Sea resort city that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics. It has asked Russia and the United Nations to recognize it as independent. No country has done so.

Mr. Saakashvili said on April 21 that he had “clear proof” a Russian jet from the Gudauta military base in Abkhazia shot down an unmanned Georgian plane. Russia says Abkhaz air-defense forces destroyed the plane.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it bolstered its peacekeeping force in Abkhazia by adding 15 observation posts on the Abkhaz border with the rest of Georgia in response to “provocative actions” by Georgian forces.

The Foreign Ministry said the strengthened peacekeeper presence was within the limits set by a 1994 cease-fire agreement, and was aimed at “preventing any possibility of further bloodshed in the Caucasus region” and at “neutralizing attempts to eliminate the prospect of a peaceful, political solution to the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.”

The United Nations on April 15 extended the mandate of its observer mission in Georgia for six months. About 2,000 Russian peacekeepers are stationed in Abkhazia under a Commonwealth of Independent States mandate.

Also yesterday, the Russian president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev, announced he will make his first foreign visit as the head of state to Kazakhstan and China, his country’s largest neighbors.

Mr. Medvedev, who takes over from President Putin on May 7, didn’t say when he’ll make the trip. He said before the March 2 presidential election that his first foreign visit would be to a former Soviet republic.

“As I promised on the eve of the election, I will go first to Kazakhstan,” Mr. Medvedev said while visiting a newspaper office in Moscow yesterday, in remarks broadcast on state television. “From Kazakhstan I will go to China. It will be my first foreign trip.”