Renewed tensions between Russia and Georgia have spilled over to the United Nations where Tbilisi’s envoy accused his Moscow counterpart of using ”Soviet-era propaganda” as part of efforts to destabilise his country.

On the eve of the launch on Wednesday of Nato military exercises in Georgia, Alexander Lomaia denied a claim by Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, that a large-scale Georgian military build-up was under way near the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.