THE tiny former Soviet republic of Georgia accused Russia of ethnic cleansing yesterday after the Kremlin cut trade, transport and postal links and began to investigate children with Georgian names in Moscow schools.

The clampdown came in retaliation for the arrests of four Russian officers in Georgia on spy charges.

“We are not scared. We are not panicking,” said Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia’s pro-western president, even though his country faces possible ruin as a result of Russian sanctions.

Saakashvili, speaking in his Soviet-era office, said: “It’s a deliberate policy to make our lives miserable but this is not breaking us. On the contrary it’s making us stronger and more independent. The Kremlin is running out of ammunition.”

The already poisoned relations between the former allies seem set to deteriorate further. Moscow police ordered schools in the Russian capital to provide lists of children with Georgian surnames in what they said was an attempt to root out illegal migrants.

Gela Bezhuashvili, Georgia’s foreign minister, accused Moscow of xenophobia and ethnic cleansing.

This week the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, will consider a bill that would stop the flow of funds Georgians send home to their often impoverished families. Worse still, the Kremlin could cut off gas supplies.

Last week Russia deported a planeload of 150 Georgians it accused of violating immigration laws. The deportees were rounded up in police raids, taken under armed escort to a military airport and put on a plane to Tbilisi.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, responded to the arrest of the Russians — who were sent back to Moscow after being paraded in handcuffs — by accusing Saakashvili’s government of “state terrorism” and comparing his methods to those of Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s infamous secret police chief who sent hundreds of thousands to their deaths. The analogy was highly insulting as Beria, like Stalin, was a Georgian.

Saakashvili, who came to power three years ago after a bloodless uprising, is a hate figure for Russia. A fluent English speaker with a Dutch wife, he has made no secret of his ambition to push Georgia closer to the West and join Nato. He has not spoken to Putin since June.

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