Jaded as you must be by my extensive offerings on the Kosovo/Georgia/Russia saga, you might care to look at the related (and vigorous) thoughts of three other former FCO Ambassadorial colleagues:

Sir Ivor Roberts:

How can the West talk of the need to maintain an independent state’s territorial integrity and to refuse to countenance forcible changes of borders when that is exactly what the US and most of the EU countries condoned in recognising Kosovo — against Serbia’s will, and in the absence of any Security Council Resolution allowing it? To argue that Kosovo is unique is facile. Each potential secession is special, with its own often violent history … Be careful what you wish for, says the old adage.

Brian Barder: 

It’s too late to undo those Kosovo mistakes now, but it’s not too late to begin to recognise them as mistakes and to try to learn some lessons from them in our future approach to Georgia (and Ukraine) in relation to Russia. 

And Craig Murray:

Agreed separations like the Czech and Slovak are no problem, but there is no fixed law for a region wishing to separate against the wishes of the state it is in. Quite simply it depends on having the political clout to get the UN to agree.

North Cyprus is a de facto state which never managed to pull this off, and seems a good parallel for the likely future of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Many "Western" states are deeply wary of acknowledging separatists for their own internal reasons – Canada and Spain being good examples.

The Chechen case is important, because it illustrates both Putin’s extreme ruthlessness, and the fact that Russia has no principle on its side. Russia supports or opposes the rights of separatists purely as they benefit Putin’s aims to expand Russian influence.

I agree with some of what they each say and disagree with plenty.

A reader on one of my posts writes:

Your article seems to be another in a series of lame attempts to minimize Russia’s responsibility for her actions in GA with a critique of the West’s Kosovo policies. Am I wrong on this?

This is a core point, and (I think) where I part company from my colleagues as above. What exactly are the policy and (as it were) psychological links between Kosovo and Georgia, if any?

That needs a new post to do the subject full justice.

To be continued after I have walked the dog…