Wrapped up in the international dispute over Russia's attack on Georgia is a moral argument between Russia and the west that will shape the future of Georgia's breakaway territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and could end in the International Criminal Court.

Russia is presenting its attack on Georgia as a "peace enforcement operation" in a deliberate comparison with Nato's intervention in Kosovo in 1999. "The Russians are setting up markers each time with reference to Kosovo," said Sabine Freizer, director of the International Crisis Group's Europe programme.