Georgia is drifting into the Kremlin’s orbit

The road from Tbilisi airport to the old town—a web of steep cobbled streets with ornate balconies and the mouthwatering smell of khinkali dumplings and khachapuri cheese bread—bears the name of George W. Bush, the first American president to visit the small Caucasian country, in 2005. Saluting its democratic reforms, Mr Bush called Georgia “a beacon of liberty” and told its young and restless reformist president, Mikheil Saakashvili, that Georgia had “a solid friend in America”.