Georgia Returns Russian Spy Suspects

Georgia on Monday released four Russian officers whose arrest on spying charges prompted Moscow to announce sweeping travel and communications sanctions in the worst bilateral crisis in years.

Hoping to defuse tensions, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said he had decided to hand over the Russians to visiting Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, the current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, even though Georgia has a strong case against them.

"I want to make it very clear: we have a very well-founded case," Saakashvili told reporters at a briefing. "It's a very solid case of espionage, subversion and trying to destabilize my country."

The officers were then brought to Georgian prosecutors who reaffirmed spying accusations against them and barred them from entering Georgia again before handing them over to the OSCE.

The Kremlin said that President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Georgia with President Bush in a telephone conversation Monday. It did not elaborate.

The arrests last week infuriated Russia, which has put its troops in Georgia on high alert, recalled its ambassador and evacuated its diplomats and other citizens from the former Soviet republic to the south.

Russia's transport and communications ministries said all air, road, rail, sea and postal links with Georgia would be suspended. Russian carrier Aeroflot said it would stop all flights to Georgia as of Tuesday.

The sanctions will be especially painful for Georgia, affecting a large number of its citizens who travel to and from Russia on business and family matters.

In a sign of further Russian punitive measures, the Russian parliamentary speaker Boris Gryzlov said the State Duma lower house planned to pass legislative amendments that would allow the government to ban banking operations with certain countries, Interfax reported.

Huge numbers of Georgians work in Russia and send back remittances back to their families and the suspension of banking links with Russia would be a major hardship for Georgia's economically struggling population.

The head of the Russian railways, Vladimir Yakunin, said Russia would cancel a planned order worth $3.75 million for spare parts for electric locomotives from Georgia, according to ITAR-Tass.

The Russian Embassy in Tbilisi said the four officers would be flown to Moscow later Monday, ITAR-Tass reported. A source in the Georgian government, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the contacts between Tbilisi and Moscow, said a plane from Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry had arrived to carry back not only the four detained officers but also two more sought by the Georgians on allegations of spying.

Ties between Tbilisi and Moscow had already been strained over Georgia's bid to join NATO and allegations that Russia was backing two Georgian separatist provinces. Moscow denies that claim.

Putin denounced the arrests Sunday as "state terrorism."

"Those who are doing that believe that anti-Russian course of foreign policy meets the Georgian people's interests. I don't think so," Putin said.

The commander of Russian military forces in Georgia said his troops had been put on high alert and ordered to shoot to kill to defend their bases.

Some senior pro-Kremlin lawmakers urged even stronger measures. Georgian parliamentary speaker Nino Burdzhanadze in an interview published Monday said that his country was counting on international support if the dispute escalated dangerously.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has said the arrests of the Russians were aimed at pushing Russian troops out of Georgia so the government could seize control of the separatist provinces by force.

Despite the tensions, Putin said Russia would stick to a deal signed last year to withdraw its troops from Georgia by the end of 2008.

Russia's long-fraught relations with Georgia have worsened since Saakashvili came to power following the 2003 Rose Revolution, pledging to move the country out of Russia's orbit, bring breakaway provinces back into fold and join NATO in 2008.

Along with some 2,500 peacekeepers in breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia has between 3,000 and 4,000 troops at two military bases in Georgia that it pledged to withdraw by the end of 2008 under a deal signed last year.