South Ossetian leader Leonid Tibilov made the announcement after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a vote that commentators said would mimic a similar vote in Crimea last year which preceded Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian region.

“The referendum, the positive outcome of which I have no doubt, will allow us to unite our people,” media quoted Mr Tibilov as saying after meeting Vladislav Surkov, an adviser to Mr Putin.

He didn’t put a timeframe on the vote but did say that it would only go ahead with the express permission from Moscow.

And this appeared to have disappeared very quickly. The following day, the Kremlin released a statement which said that a referendum on South Ossetia joining Russia had not even been discussed at the meeting.

Georgia fought a war in 2008 against Russia over South Ossetia. After the war, Russia recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Georgia’s other breakaway region of Abkhazia.

Only a handful of other countries followed the Kremlin’s lead and recognised South Ossetia’s independence.

Any referendum in South Ossetia would strain relations between Russia and Georgia and predictably the Georgian government reacted strongly to Mr Tbililov’s statement.

“It just confirms the provocative policy which Russia is pursuing on South Ossetia. It is a continuation of Russia’s policy of ‘creeping occupation’,”Gigi Gigiadze, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, told media.