The United States scuttled its plan to sail humanitarian aid into Georgia’s main seaport Wednesday as Russia denounced the deployment and sent a naval task force into the waters off nearby Abkhazia.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter steered its humanitarian cargo instead to Batumi, 50 miles to the south, avoiding a potential confrontation with Moscow in the Black Sea.

In what would have been a strong show of support to an embattled ally, the U.S. military had intended to send the cutter Dallas to Poti, Georgia’s main commercial port, escorted by the USS McFaul, a destroyer. Poti is under Georgian control, but Russian forces operate two checkpoints outside the town on the Black Sea 15 miles south of the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia.

Instead, Russia deployed a naval task force armed with anti-ship and antiaircraft missiles in the waters off Abkhazia, which it occupies, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported Wednesday.