East Ayrshire Council's decision to alter a war memorial has ignited a bitter row between the Georgian government and a separatist region backed by Russia.

The Howard Park monument honouring Abkhazians killed in the region's year-long war for independence was erected in Kilmarnock in the 1990s.

The East Ayrshire town was then twinned with Sukhumi, an Abkhaz city at the centre of the conflict.

The memorial has now been temporarily removed following a complaint about its wording by the Georgian ambassador to the Foreign Office.

The decision has been condemned by the de facto Abkhaz government, which supports Scottish and Catalan independence.

The Abkhaz flag will be removed and the monument will be reworded in a "more appropriate manner" before it is restored, East Ayrshire Council said.

It said the new wording will "remember those from Sukhumi who fell on both sides of the conflict, hopefully without causing offence to any party".