Russia and Georgia: Will the Tension Go Down?

Russia has detained a spy supposedly from Georgia, heightening the already high tensions between the two nations.

Russia's security service said agents detained a spy allegedly recruited by Georgia to support insurgents in the restive North Caucasus, news agencies reported Friday, adding to escalating tension between the ex-Soviet republics.

A Georgian official denied the allegation and called it part of a Russian "policy of provocation" aimed at Georgia, which is the focus of a struggle for regional influence between Moscow and the West.

Russia's relations with Georgia are badly strained as the small country's U.S.-allied leader courts the West. Tensions have increased sharply lately over Russia's increasing support for Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia province, a linchpin in Moscow's efforts to thwart Georgia's drive for NATO membership.

Doesn't look like they'll be trading ping-pong diplomacy anytime soon.

For more on the Russian-Georgian situation, and how absurd it really is (given the desired region is Abkhazia), read this great article at Foreign Policy Passport.
Excerpt below:

Abkhazia does have a beautiful coast -- so beautiful, in fact, that the most famous Georgian of them all incorporated it into Georgia proper back in 1931, setting the province on course for decades of ethnic tension and the economic isolation. Beautiful or not though, this week's map shows that much of Abkhazia's shore line is actually chock full of “pesticides and/or heavy metals (mainly inherited from the Soviet period)” (yellow patches).

All in all, I can see why neither Georgia nor Russia will give up their influence over this diamond in the rough -- what country wouldn't forsake regional stability for a few more nuclear waste sites?

All this fuss over that?

Russia or Georgia: Who is more to blame?