RosBusinessConsulting reports:

Trade between Georgia and Russia fell 4.4 percent to $322m in the first quarter of 2007, compared to the same period a year earlier, the Georgian State Statistics Department reported, indicating that this was the first time that Russia has ceded its leading position in Georgia's foreign trade to Turkey, whose contribution stood at $387m in Q1 2007. Georgia's trade with the CIS has also dropped. Where in January-June 2006, the CIS's share of Georgia's overall foreign trade stood at 41 percent, it has shrunk to 37 percent this year . At the same time, Georgia's trade with Ukraine has surged 41 percent to $263m, which put the republic at 3rd place among Georgia's foreign trade partners. Overall, Georgia's trade reached $2.7bn in H1 2007, a 37-percent increase from January-June 2006, with exports increasing 20.1 percent to $548.6m.

President Putin has made Russia a pariah among nations, provoked a new cold war with the West, and alienated virtually every potential ally in post-Soviet space. The people of Russia got what they paid for.