Georgia charges four Russian officers with spying

Georgia today charged four Russian officers with spying and a court was to decide later whether they should continue to be held in custody as relations between the two ex-Soviet neighbours plummeted to a new low.

Shota Khizanishvili, spokesman for the Interior Minister in Tbilisi, said the espionage charges were officially filed against four Russian military officers who were detained on Wednesday. A fifth officer, who served as a contract soldier, was released today, he said.

Meanwhile, Russia prepared to evacuate some of its citizens from Georgia, citing security concerns.

Infuriated by the detentions, Moscow announced yesterday that it was recalling its ambassador and evacuating its diplomats, and complained to the United Nations over Tbilisi’s action. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov denounced Georgia as a “bandit” state.

Bilateral ties long have been strained over Georgia’s bid to join Nato and Moscow’s close links to Georgia’s breakaway provinces.

Georgian police still surrounded the Russian military headquarters in Tbilisi today, hoping to detain a sixth Russian officer accused of spying. Russia said it would not surrender the officer, Lt. Col. Konstantin Pichugin.

“There will be no handover of Pichugin,” Russian Ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko told Russia’s NTV television, saying the Georgians had not made convincing arguments for the accusations against the officer.

Meanwhile, two Russian government planes landed in Tbilisi to take more than a hundred Russian diplomats and their families out of Georgia.

“A direct threat has been created for Russian citizens here and we are very concerned about them,” Kovalenko said.

Relations were further strained today when an official in one of Georgia’s unrecognised breakaway provinces claimed that Georgian security officers beat a group of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone.

Irina Gagloyeva, spokeswoman for the internationally unrecognised South Ossetian government, said masked Georgian officers stopped a car carrying four Russian peacekeepers, a woman and a child in the village of Avnevi last night.

She said they shot at the car’s wheels, and ordered the men out and beat them. One of the peacekeepers sustained a fractured skull, she said.

After being released, the peacekeepers drove to a nearby checkpoint maintained by Georgian police, who told them that the masked soldiers were elite Defence Ministry troops, Gagloyeva said.

Paata Bedianashvili, spokesman for Georgian peacekeepers in the region, denied the allegations. “It’s all rubbish, nothing like that took place,” he said.

Bedianashvili said Georgian police did stop a car containing Russian peacekeepers, but merely checked their documents and let them go.

The Russian Foreign Ministry advised all Russians to refrain from travelling to Georgia, and the embassy in Tbilisi stopped issuing visas to Georgian citizens.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili denounced the Russian moves as hysteria. “Russian personnel and their families face absolutely no threat here,” he said.

Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have become increasingly tense since Saakashvili came to power following Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution, pledging to move the country out of Russia’s orbit.

Tbilisi officials have accused Russia of backing separatists in Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and making efforts to undermine Saakashvili’s government – allegations Russia has denied.

Russian political analyst Boris Makarenko suggested Georgia’s actions were an attempt by Saakashvili to bring his nation closer to Nato by provoking Russian aggression.

“He is trying to get into Nato,” said Makarenko, of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies think tank. He said Saakashvili believes Russian aggression would prompt the alliance to say that “Georgia’s security is under threat and it needs to be brought under Nato’s umbrella.”

He also suggested Saakashvili, could be trying to boost his falling popularity by turning Georgia into a victim of Russia’s aggression.

Georgian political analyst Soso Tsinadze disagreed, saying Saakashvili was merely trying to shake off Russia’s influence.

“There is only one goal: for Georgia to become a truly independent state ... and there is no need to look for anything else,” he said.