Tensions between Russia and Georgia are heightening. In the latest development, the Russians have accused Georgian special forces of aiding anti-Russian insurgents. The Georgians meanwhile are outraged by the build-up of Russian forces in the separatist Georgian province of Abkhazia. They are now talking about a military response. And that would mean a shooting war with Russia - albeit, probably, quite a short one.

Specifically, the Georgians point to the downing of Georgian drones flying over Abkhazia, which is (after all) part of their country. They say that one of their drones was definitely shot down by a Russian Mig. They are threatening to shoot down the next Russian Mig to over-fly Georgian territory. And they say that they have tacitly been given the go-ahead by the Americans to do this.

It may be that the Georgians are just talking tough, in the hope of provoking the international mediation over Abkhazia that they desperately want. I hope so. Because I think that shooting down a Russian plane would be the stupidest thing they could possibly do. It would give Russia exactly the excuse it needed to launch military operations against Georgia.

In Winston Churchill’s memoirs, he records a meeting with Stalin in October 1944: “The moment was apt for business, so I said ‘Let us settle our affairs in the Balkans… So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have 90 per cent predominance in Romania, for us to have 90 per cent of the say in Greece and go 50-50 about Yugoslavia?’ While this was being translated, I wrote out the percentages on a half-sheet of paper. I pushed this across to Stalin… There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us. It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down.”

I was in Georgia – Stalin’s birthplace – last week. The country regained its independence in 1991. But its leaders fear that they may yet be subject to a modern version of the Churchill-Stalin percentages deal – in which the west casually assigns Georgia into Moscow’s “sphere of influence”.

The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post comments below.

During the cold war it was natural to lump Russia and China together. They were the two great communist powers -€“ the leading ideological adversaries of the west.

Then came 1989 -€“ the year of the crushing of the students’ revolt in China and the collapse of the Soviet empire. Communism had failed. Free markets and democracy seemed poised to sweep all before them. The spirit of the time was captured in Francis Fukuyama’s famous article on "€The End of History€", published in Washington’™s National Interest magazine that summer. Mr Fukuyama did not argue that history had ended in the sense that there would be no more great events. Rather he claimed ideological victory for the west, suggesting that "€œliberal democracy may constitute the end point of man’s ideological evolution".

Even though it swiftly became fashionable to dismiss Mr Fukuyama, a variant of his thesis has powerfully influenced US foreign policy ever since. The chain of thinking works something like this. Communism failed as an economic system. Russia and China have had to embrace free markets. Economic freedom will, in time, produce political freedom. A liberalised economy will generate new forces and tensions that will make it impossible to maintain an authoritarian political system.

The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post comments below.

Perhaps there is something wrong with me - or I am badly missing the point. But I can’t help feeling a certain sympathy for the Russian position over Kosovo. All my friends who follow Russian foreign policy and/or the Balkans tell me I’m wrong and that the Putin government is behaving provocatively and irresponsibly. But, as far as I can see, it is the Russians who are sticking to the letter of the law.

Let me re-cap. The situation in Kosovo has been building steadily towards a crisis for months. By December 10 the Serbs and the Kosovars are meant to have reached an agreement. Everybody knows that this is not going to happen - and that the Kosovars will almost certainly declare independence soon after the breakdown of talks. At that point the US will in all probability recognise Kosovo, as will many EU countries (although not the EU itself).

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The only thing that surprises me about the Russian government’s crackdown on the opposition ahead of the Duma elections on Sunday is how heavy-handed it is. President Putin is clearly keen to preserve the facade of Russian democracy and his party is cruising to victory anyway - so why bother?

An explanation of sorts was offered to me recently by Mikhail Kasyanov - once Putin’s prime minister, and now a leader of the increasingly fragmented and harried opposition. Kasyanov says that the current regime in the Kremlin is "based on the KGB spirit". He thinks that "Putin would win anyway, but the KGB mentality is risk averse. If they can eliminate risks, they’ll do it."

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I will stop banging on about Russia soon. But as well as the Kremlin meeting I recorded in the blog earlier in the week, I had lots of other meetings, kindly organised by the Heinrich Boll Stiftung, a German foundation.

Among the people we met was Yury Schmidt, the lawyer for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the imprisoned former boss of Yukos. Schmidt is still doing his best by his client. But since he - like most people I spoke to - assume the legal process around Yukos is entirely politicised, it is difficult to hold out much hope. Much of what Schmidt had to say was convincing, even moving. But some of it seemed a little too ingenious. He argued that many of Khodorkovsky’s alleged crimes were committed in a period when the Soviet legal system had collapsed, but new laws had not yet been passed. I asked, "So you are saying since there were no laws, it was imposssible to break the law?" He replied, "Exactly."

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Last Friday I met Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, and so had a chance to put to him some of the criticisms of the Putin government, listed in my post "Fulminating against Russia." I will give an account of his views on missile defence et al, lower down.

However, I have found that most people I have spoken to about the meeting are far more interested in the question of what the Kremlin is actually like inside, than in what its representatives have to say to the world. The answer is that it is surprisingly dingy. Admittedly, it is also huge - and I only went into the first building that faces onto Red Square. However this is where, I am told, President Putin himself works. The corridors are long, sparse and lit by low wattage light bulbs. The lifts are elderly. And the security seems relatively lax, certainly compared to Downing Street or the White House. Peskov’s office has a great view over St Basil’s cathedral. But it is hardly opulent. There is a workaday conference table and a couple of beaten-up old sofas. I do not mean this as a criticism. Given that Mr Putin’s circle are regularly accused of enriching themselves, it is quite interesting that their working surroundings are not particularly flashy.

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Dmitry Peskov, official spokesman for the Russian president, likes a joke. Visitors to his Kremlin office last week noticed that the screensaver on his computer is a series of revolving quotes from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: “Big Brother is watching you”, “war is peace”, “freedom is slavery”, “ignorance is strength”.

Since Mr Peskov works from the same building from which Stalin operated – and now speaks for Vladimir Putin, who is often accused of establishing a new Russian autocracy – this is all rather daring. Or tasteless. Possibly both.

Mr Peskov speaks with the relaxed good humour – and even the accent – of an American spin-doctor. But listening to some of what he had to say, I experienced a strong sense of déjà vu – and it was not the US that was brought to mind. It was China.

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I keep being told that there is no such thing as the rule of law here in Russia. And now I know it’s true. That was never a penalty.

For those of you who have not been following events in Moscow, I refer to the Russia-England football match, and the unjustly awarded spot kick that turned the game. This evening I had decided to give maximum space to my inner moron – and so quietly excused myself from a dinner with Russian NGOs, in favour of watching the match on television. All England needed was a draw – and with just 20 minutes to go, we were winning. Wayne Rooney – that epitome of all that is finest in English manhood – had put England ahead. But then came the imaginary penalty, awarded against poor, bewildered Rooney. Then another Russian goal (fluke) – and we had lost.

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I will be in Moscow later this week which should be fascinating since I haven’t been for a couple of years. For reasons too tedious to go into, I won’t be able to do the blog from Russia. So, after this post, there will be a short period of silence.

In preparation for the trip, however, I’ve been talking to lots of people. The single most memorable conversation I have had about Russia was with a "senior administration official" in Washington,a few weeks ago. The man in question is not generally regarded as a hardliner or a hawk. But his view of developments in Russia was extraordinary bleak. Here are the edited highlights:

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