"I don't want them to get under my skin," says Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president. The "them" are the Russians, and Russia's behaviour towards its southern neighbour clearly does get under his skin.

He argues that the recent tensions with Russia are designed to undermine Georgia's efforts to regenerate its economy. "I think they want to keep Georgia on the map as some kind of problem spot," he says. "Because we would rather be attracting investment as a country with the lowest flat-rate tax in the world, as a country that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said has the lowest corruption in eastern Europe except Slovenia and Estonia. That's the news we would rather have out."