GEORGIA: Georgia defied Russian protests and put four Moscow army officers on trial for spying yesterday, further ratcheting up the tension between the two countries.
Prosecutors in Tblisi say the four soldiers, including a colonel, who are charged together with 12 Georgians, were filmed handling secret material in a surveillance operation earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Tblisi police were last night locked in a standoff with Russian troops who were sheltering a fifth intelligence officer, also charged with spying, inside a Russian military base in the Georgian capital.
Moscow says the charges are false, and the Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov described the Georgian action as "state banditry". Moscow has recalled its ambassador in protest. It has also branded as "dangerous and unacceptable" what it says are Georgian provocations near its separatist enclave, Abkhazia. Soldiers and their families inside the Russian base have been ordered to remain inside.
Tensions between the two powers have been high in recent weeks after Georgia began talks with Nato over joining the Western Alliance. Russia yesterday protested at Nato's decision to deliver military equipment to Moscow's southern neighbour.
The antagonism between the two states goes back to the start of the Chechen war in 1999 when Russia accused Georgia of sheltering Chechen rebels.
There was further antagonism when, after the pro-democracy Rose Revolution in 2003, Georgia's foreign policy switched from supporting Moscow to courting the West and applying for Nato membership.
Tblisi provides the route for an important pipeline into oil-rich central Asia which bypasses Russia, and it enjoys strong backing from US president George Bush, who made a high-profile visit to the country last year.
In January Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili blamed Russian authorities for bombs that wrecked two gas pipelines.
Last summer when Georgia moved troops near to pro-Russian enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow banned Georgian wine and mineral water for sale, citing health concerns.
Mr Saakashvili yesterday branded Russia's reaction to the spy trial "hysterical".
The four officers charged with spying appeared before a judge in Tblisi for a closed-doors preliminary hearing. A colonel, Konstantin Pichugin, remains inside the Russian base. The full trial is expected to last several months.
Tblisi has protested in recent weeks about Russia's continued deployment of peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, saying the troops prevent Georgia from reasserting its authority over the two enclaves. In July Georgian troops attacked and captured a small separatist enclave adjacent to Abkhazia.