There is a split between “old and new Europe” — roughly Western and Eastern Europe, said Clifford Kupchan, a director of the Eurasia Group. New Europe, backed by Britain and Scandinavia, is taking a harder line toward Russia, while old Europe “will only be reinforced in its view that Georgia and Ukraine are not ready for NATO.”

Moscow still views the world through the prism of the Cold War and is convinced it has to make a stand in Georgia against an overwhelmingly powerful and increasingly aggressive Western alliance that it fears is hemming in Russia and stirring up trouble among its neighbours from Serbia and Kosovo to Georgia and Ukraine.