Russia and Georgia in fall out over spy scandal

MOSCOW - A spy scandal between Russia and its former imperial vassal Georgia evolved into a dangerously volatile international situation yesterday taking relations between the two countries to their lowest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The row erupted on Thursday when Georgia arrested four Russian army officers and an NCO and accused them of forming a spy ring bent on undermining the country's pro-Western government.

Moscow furiously denied the allegations and yesterday demanded the release of its personnel calling Georgia's actions "a complete outrage".

In a sign of how seriously Moscow is taking the situation, it withdrew its ambassador to Georgia, started the evacuation of officials and their families, and stopped issuing Russian visas to Georgians.

Visibly shaking with anger, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told Russian state TV of a separate incident in which he claimed seven Russian servicemen had been savagely beaten by Georgian law enforcement officials in an unprovoked attack.

"These acts are an open attempt to provoke, with a hysteria that is customary for the Georgian leadership, the Russian Federation to inappropriate action.

"All of this is aimed at provoking the situation and raising the degree of tension to the maximum level in order to deflect attention away from problems that exist in Georgia."

Ivanov, who is one of a handful of men tipped to succeed Vladimir Putin as president, also made a jibe designed to remind the world that it was Georgia that spawned Soviet despot Josef Stalin.

"The climate in Georgia reminds me of the year 1937," he said in a reference to Stalin's purges and arrests of his enemies.

"I would not be surprised if the Georgian side accuses Russian servicemen of an attempt to steal the sun and the sky."

Moscow said it would seek to discuss Georgia's recent behaviour at the United Nations Security Council branding Georgia "a bandit state."

Meanwhile Russia's military headquarters in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, was ringed with Georgian policemen intent on arresting another purported Russian spy said to be cowering inside.

Russia has two military bases in Georgia as a hangover from the Soviet era; both are due to close in 2008.

Mikhail Saakashvili, the US-educated Georgian president, dismissed Moscow's sabre-rattling as "hysteria" and told his country of five million people that any other normal country would have acted in the same way as his was.

"Georgia is acting just like any other democratic state would do such as Britain, Poland, the United States or any other country," he said.

His officials produced documentary evidence that they said showed that the arrested Russians were spies and had been complicit in a recent bomb attack that killed three police officers and injured 23 others.

This latest scandal follows the mass detention of opposition politicians alleged to be plotting a coup d'etat against Mr Saakashvili with Moscow's support.

Russia's relations with Georgia have deteriorated since Saakashvili came to power in the so-called 'rose revolution' in 2003 promising to take the small former Soviet republic out of Russia's orbit.

Since then he has angered Moscow by trying to take his country into NATO and by trying to seize back control of two rebel regions - South Ossetia and Abkhazia - that are run by pro-Russian forces.

Russia has punished him by banning Georgian wine and mineral water, the country's main exports, and by offering overt support to the two rebel regions.

Sergei Mironov, the Chairman of Russia's Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, yesterday warned that the unfolding row could lead to war as nationalists demanded Russia get tough with a country it believes is being propped up by its old enemy the United States.

- INDEPENDENT