The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that Tbilisi’s reaction to the gas pipelines which were destroyed in North Ossetia and which cut off the gas supply to Georgia was “hysteria and bacchanalia,” several Russian news agencies reported. Russian MFA said "a mix of dependency, hypocricy and depraved behavior has formed" in Georgia "multiplied by the feeling of impunity in a hope to find the guardians of its anti-Russian policy in the West."

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili accused Russia of sabotaging Georgia and describe Moscow as an “unprincipled blackmailer.”

A statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry on January 22 says that it is “cynicism” to claim that Russia has masterminded a terrorist act on its own territory.

“Attempts to find an external enemy to justify [Georgia's] own helplessness to ensure a normal life for its own state has not brought any good so far,” the statement reads.

“If Tbilisi has once and for all decided to worsen relations with Russia, [the Georgian authorities] probably also estimated all the possible consequences of this policy,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.