The presidential web site of Georgia has been hit by a politically motivated denial of service (dDos) attack originating in Russia, according to security vendor Arbor Networks.

The web site - www.president.gov.ge - was offline for about 24 hours.

"Tensions between Russia and Georgia appear to be running high lately. This attack appears to have a political motivation. One of the messages in the floods (HTTP, SYN, ICMP) reads “win+love+in+Rusia," said Jose Nazario, chief analyst at Arbor Networks.

In recent weeks Georgia has clashed with Russian authorities over disputes in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Last year Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was the subject of a dDoS attack, believed to have been of Russian origin.

The web site for Garry Kasparov, famed Russian chess grand master and well-known critic of the Russian regime, was also hit with an attack last year.

And Estonia suffered unprecedented attacks on its infrastructure last year after it moved a Soviet war memorial in Talinn.

The Russian government has maintained the attacks are the work of dissident groups.