TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia on Wednesday accused Russia of sending fighter jets into its airspace to undermine Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the pro-Western state.

Rice was heading to Tbilisi with a message of support for Georgia's government in its conflict with Russia over two breakaway regions, and to endorse the country's bid to join the NATO military alliance.

Russia made no immediate comment on the Georgian allegations. Earlier, Russia's foreign ministry said it was Tbilisi which was stoking tensions in the volatile region by orchestrating acts of violence in the separatist regions.

The two regions -- Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- lie in an arc of land the West sees as a vital route for exporting oil from the Caspian Sea to world markets, and where Washington and Moscow are competing for influence.

The deputy commander of Georgia's military, Zurab Pochkua, said four Russian jets had spent a total of forty minutes in the air over South Ossetia on Tuesday night. He said Georgian forces did not fire on them to avoid loss of life on the ground.

A spokesman for Russia's air force declined to make an immediate comment. Russia has denied allegations in the past that its jets flew into Georgian airspace.

Officials in Tbilisi said Russia was ratcheting up tension hours before Rice's arrival because it wanted to sabotage talks on Western states taking a more active role in mediating in the separatist conflicts.

"It's a well-known policy of the Russian Federation to arrange provocations to coincide with high-level diplomatic activities. It's not only this visit of Miss Rice," Georgian Foreign Minister Ekaterine Tkeshelashvili told reporters.

"Every time when diplomatic activity becomes strong enough to bring changes to the peace process, meaningful changes, then the Russian Federation does something to jeopardize that."

Earlier, Russia accused Georgia in the most explicit form to date of being behind attacks this month including a cafe bomb in Abkhazia that killed four and an exchange of fire in South Ossetia that killed two separatists.

"THREAT TO PEACE"

The two regions are internationally recognized as part of Georgia but threw off Tbilisi's control in separatist wars in the 1990s and now run their own affairs with Russian support.

"The actions of Tbilisi present a real threat to peace and security in the South Caucasus and put the region on the edge of a new armed conflict with unpredictable consequences," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In Bulgaria, the latest stop on a European tour that will take her next to the Georgian capital, Rice made it clear which side Washington favored in the conflict.

"The United States considers Georgia to be a good friend," Rice told reporters.

"There have been a number of moves recently by the Russian Federation that in fact have not been helpful in terms of the frozen conflicts there with Georgia and Abkhazia."

Georgia this year accused Russia of trying to annex the two breakaway regions after Moscow reinforced its peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia and established semi-official ties with the separatists.

Russia is fiercely opposed to Georgia's NATO ambitions, saying the appearance of a new alliance member on its south-western border would threaten its security.

On a previous leg of her trip, Rice angered Moscow by signing a deal with the Czech Republic to host elements of the missile shield Washington wants to build in eastern Europe.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Sofia; James Kilner and Tatiana Ustinova in Moscow and Niko Mchedlishvili in Tbilisi; writing by Christian Lowe; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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