Russia Caught in Web of Espionage

[falcon]

Russia Caught in Web of Espionage

Four Russian officers arrested in Georgia

Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili announced yesterday that Georgian special services have uncovered a spy network in Georgia coordinated by Russian intelligence agents. Four officers of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department and 11 Georgian citizens allegedly working for them were arrested yesterday in the second half of the day. The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin called the arrest a provocation in a harshly-worded statement and demanded the release of those arrested.

The Georgian police came to the headquarters of the Russian Group of Forces in the Transcaucasus in Tbilisi but did not enter it, since the building has diplomatic immunity. They surrounded the building and checked the documents of all who entered and left it. The siege lasted several hours. At first, the Georgian refused to explain the point of their activities. In the evening, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili held a press conference at which he announced that “the counterintelligence department of the Interior Ministry arrested four officers of the Main Intelligence Department, military at the Russian Group of Forces in the Transcaucasus, on charges of espionage.” He said that their network operates throughout the country. Two of the accused, Lieut. Col. Alexander Saava and Lieut. Col. Dmitry Kazantsev, were arrested in Tbilisi, and two more, Capt. Alexander Zagorodny and Lieut. Col. Alexander Baranov, were arrested in Batumi. All of the 11 Georgian citizens arrested for criminal ties with Russian intelligence operated inside Georgia gathering information on the Georgian Army and military programs, the minister added.

The reason the Russian Group of Forces in the Transcaucasus headquarters was surrounded by the police was that another suspect, Lieut. Col. Konstantin Pichugin, had taken shelter within the building.

Georgian law enforcement claims that the arrestees were not only engaged in espionage, but were involved in acts of terrorism in Georgia as well. Merabishvili said that the leader of the spy network is thought to be Russian military intelligence Col. Anatoly Sinitsyn, whom the Georgian also consider the organizer of the terrorist act in Gori on February 1 of last year, when an explosives-laden truck exploded near that city's police station. Three people were killed and 27 wounded and the police station was partially destroyed.

Georgian authorities also say that the arrestees had contact with supporters of opposition Justice Party leader Igor Giorgadze who were arrested at the beginning of the month on charges of preparing a coup d'etat. One of those Justice leaders, Jemal Gogitidze, told Kommersant that the charges were fantastic. “They did it to compromise our movement,” he said.

Shortly after Merabishvili's press conference, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Georgian Ambassador in Moscow Irakly Chubinishvili for an explanation. A Defense Ministry source told Kommersant that the Russian officers arrested were not on the staff of the Group of Forces in the Transcaucasus but had come to Georgia as part of the General Staff group overseeing the withdrawal of Russian forces from that country.

http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=530&id=708235

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Russia recalls envoy in row with Georgia

Thu Sep 28, 2006 7:31 PM BST

By Margarita Antidze
TBILISI (Reuters) - Russia recalled its ambassador from neighbouring Georgia on Thursday and ordered the evacuation of some officials, escalating a crisis sparked by the detention of four Russian army officers on spying charges.
Moscow also told its citizens not to travel to Georgia, raising the stakes in Russia's confrontation with the small mountainous state of 5 million people it ran in Soviet times.

"We have demanded the immediate release of our citizens and we will achieve this with all the means available to us," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in televised comments.

Russia also called for emergency U.N. Security Council consultations and the council has scheduled a session behind closed doors for later in the day, said Maria Zaharova, spokeswoman for the Russian mission to the United Nations.
"The situation in Georgia becomes worse and worse and has to be discussed in the Security Council," Zaharova told Reuters. She said the request had come from Lavrov.
Russia acted after Georgia, run by pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili, detained a group of Russian army officers on Wednesday night for alleged spying.
The crisis came after months of deteriorating relations between Georgia and its giant neighbour. Moscow dislikes Saakashvili's pro-Western policies -- including joining NATO -- and his public attacks on Russia.
Saakashvili himself brushed off Moscow's reaction, describing it as "hysteria".
"Georgia is acting just as any other democratic state would do, for instance Britain, Poland, the United States or any other country," he said on Georgian television.
Russian news agencies reported from Kiev that Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili had cut short a visit to Ukraine and would return to Tbilisi.
A Russian Foreign Ministry statement said the government had decided to start a "partial evacuation" of Russian state employees from Georgia "due to the growing threat to security".
"The first flights by Russia's Emergencies Ministry are scheduled for September 29," it added.

Georgia on Wednesday night announced the arrests of four GRU (Russian army intelligence) officers and more than 10 Georgian citizens.
PROOF
Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili told journalists that Georgian authorities had proof of a spy network and released video footage purporting to show the officers conspiring with Georgian citizens. One showed an exchange of money.
"We will produce evidence to confirm that all detained Russian GRU officers were personally involved in spying, were personally getting secret information, were creating a spy network, were enlisting Georgian citizens and were engaged in other illegal activities," he said.
Georgia meanwhile maintained a heavy police cordon around Russian military regional headquarters in the east of the city.
The headquarters commands two Russian bases elsewhere in the country, which date back to Soviet times. All are to be withdrawn from Georgia in 2008 under a bilateral agreement.
Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov denounced as a "complete outrage" Georgia's action. He said a Russian officer and six soldiers had also been beaten in a separate incident in the Black Sea port of Batumi.
Shaking with anger on Russian state-controlled ORT television, Ivanov said: "These acts are an open attempt to provoke, with a hysteria that is customary for the Georgian leadership, the Russian Federation to inappropriate action."
Interfax news agency said ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko would leave on Friday. A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Moscow said his recall for consultations did not mean a break in diplomatic relations.

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Georgia's detention of Russian officers can lead to war - Federation Council chairman

MOSCOW. Sept 28 (Interfax) - The detention of several Russian military officers in Georgia on spying charges could lead to a war, Russian Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov has said.
"History knows quite a few examples of such fits of acute spy-mania, like what happened in Georgia today, becoming a step in a country's preparations for unleashing military actions," Mironov told Interfax Thursday.
Mironov described the detention of Russian military officers by Georgia as a purposeful act of provocation. "This is not just another manifestation of anti-Russian attitudes on the part of the Georgian leadership but a purposeful and demonstrative provocation," he said.

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2006-217-33.cfm



Russian general says US behind latest Georgian action

RIA Novosti Moscow, 29 September: Georgia's latest actions aimed at increasing tension in relations with Russia were in many ways initiated by the USA, RIA-Novosti has been told by member of the Federation Council Gen Vladimir Kulakov.
"Their masters, who are constantly putting money into Georgia, gave the order and faithful, obedient Georgia set about carrying it out," he said, noting that by "masters" he means the USA.
Kulakov condemned the actions by the Georgian leadership, aimed at direct confrontation with Russia. "It's not nice to perform like this, on the sly, dealing blows to servicemen and unleashing a campaign of spy-mania. This will only contribute to relations between Russia and Georgia, which have developed positively over many centuries, getting worse," he said with conviction.
At the same time, Kulakov noted that recent events can only make the situation in the region worse. "The Georgian leadership has gone over to direct confrontation and this will end in stability in the region deteriorating," the senator said.
He expressed conviction that the UN Security Council will today adopt a decision that condemns the Georgian leaders' actions. "Even so, right now, in this situation, the optimum solution is to come to the negotiating table and precisely set out positions on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Russian peacekeepers and the involvement of international organizations in tackling the issue," Kulakov emphasized.

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2006-218-11.cfm

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War clouds gather in Georgian spy crisis


By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
(Filed: 30/09/2006)


The crisis in the Caucasus escalated last night as Georgia accused Russia of advancing troops towards its borders after four Russian army officers were charged with spying.

	Officers check papers at Russian Army headquarters in Tbilisi as Russia evacuates staff and their families

The worst breakdown in relations between the two ex-Soviet neighbours in 15 years seemed to worsen hour by hour on a day of high drama.
Flouting Kremlin demands for their immediate release, a Tbilisi court ordered the four Russian servicemen, whose arrest on Wednesday ostensibly triggered the crisis, to be detained for a further two months.
Georgian troops seeking a fifth officer, Lt Col Konstantin Pichugin, surrounded the headquarters of the Russian Army Group in the capital Tbilisi for a third day.
The crisis erupted when Georgia arrested the men, claiming they were members of a "very dangerous" network that had spied on the military, caused an explosion that had killed three policemen, and was planning a "serious provocation" on Georgian soil.
Georgian officials released a video which they said showed the men discussing military bases with Georgian citizens and exchanging money.
Vyacheslav Kovalenko, the Russian ambassador, said the evidence made public so far was not proof the officers were spies.
In response, Russia, which recalled its ambassador to Georgia the previous day and banned Georgians from travelling to the country, evacuated 84 diplomats and members of their families, a move some newspapers in Moscow speculated could be the prelude to war.
Vano Merabishvili, the Georgian interior minister, said Russian troops had redeployed closer to the border and claimed that Russia's Black Sea Fleet was planning "manoeuvres" in the next few days.

	Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili

"I would advise our colleagues to stop sabre-rattling," he said. "This is unacceptable for a democratic country."
Nato was also dragged into the row after Sergei Ivanov, the Russian defence minister, accused unidentified eastern European members of illegally providing Georgia with Soviet weapons.
Relations between the two countries have worsened sharply since Mikhail Saakashvili swept to power during the Rose Revolution of 2003, promising to bolster Georgia's ties with the West.
Mr Saakashvili declared his intent to restore Georgia's territorial integrity, raising fears in Moscow for the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway regions with Kremlin supported de-facto administrations that fought separatist wars in the early 1990s.
Georgia has accused Russian peacekeepers stationed in both regions of backing rebel forces.
Mr Ivanov claimed that the Saakashvili government had arrested the four Russian officers as a pretext to justify re-occupying the two territories.
"It is absolutely clear to us that Georgia has chosen the military path, the forceful path, for resolving the conflicts in South Ossetia and Akhazia," Mr Ivanov said yesterday.
Russia's reaction to the arrests also has to be seen in the context of an agreement reached by Nato last week to begin accession talks with Georgia.
Soviet attitudes to Nato have never really died, with many Russians failing to understand the necessity of its continued existence since the demise of the Warsaw Pact.
Many politicians believe there is a Nato plot to encircle Russia and are fundamentally opposed to the idea of ex-Soviet states joining the body.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, infuriated the Kremlin yesterday when he said Russia had no say in whether Georgia should join Nato. "Nato membership really is a decision for individual countries and not for countries other than the individual countries," he said.
Despite the alarming rhetoric, most analysts believe that both sides will shy away from war.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...wgeorgia30.xml

[Ryan Ruck]

Why the Russia-Georgia Spat Could Become a U.S. Headache

Analysis: Moscow wants to rein in its pro-NATO neighbor, and a spy scandal may have provided an opening

Russia has escalated its showdown with its small, NATO-inclined neighbor of Georgia by closing all transport and postal communications. No trains, no flights, no ships, no vehicles, no mail money orders — nothing can cross the border. This time, it's much worse than just another Russian spat with a former satellite state. The Georgia standoff may soon create a major headache for the Bush Administration, because of U.S. support for Georgia's right to align itself with the West.

Tuesday's announcement of the new measures came even after Georgia had handed over four Russian military intelligence officers accused of spying, and months of insults against Russia, threats to restore Georgia's sovereignty over its breakaway pro-Moscow provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and also assaults on Russian personnel serving in Georgia. Moscow insists that Russia is the injured party, forced to retaliate.

But the crisis, spurred by some emotional and erratic outbursts from Georgia, may actually suit Moscow's agenda, since the deeper issue driving the conflict is Georgia's geopolitical orientation: Georgia has joined the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that skirts Russia and ends its monopoly on transporting Caspian Sea oil to world markets; it has defied Moscow on a range of regional issues; and it is attempting to join NATO, presenting the Russian military brass with the prospect of a strategic rival strengthening its position along Russia's southern underbelly. In short, the crisis is an expression of Russia's failure to accept Georgia's independence.

To tighten the financial blockade, Russia's legislature on Wednesday will consider a bill banning all financial transfers to Georgia. Remittances sent home by some 1.2 million Georgians working in Russia currently amount to around $2 billion annually, around 20% of Georgia's GDP.

The Georgians certainly appeared intent on provoking the neighborhood hegemon last week when they made an ostentatious show of arresting the four Russian officers, threatening them with 20-year prison sentences and cordoning off Russian military headquarters in Tbilisi to demand the surrender of another Russian officer. Two groups of Russian servicemen were disarmed and beaten.

But Russia appeared more than ready for an escalation. Moscow recalled its ambassador, closed down its embassy and evacuated its personnel, and put its approximately 4,000 troops still in Georgia on high alert, ordering them to shoot to kill if they needed to defend themselves. "These people [Georgians] think that under the protection of their foreign sponsors they can feel comfortable and secure," intoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday in televised remarks. "Is it really so?"

Putin's jibe at the U.S. was transparent. And he stepped up his open support of the secessionist agenda of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which had broken away from Georgia with Russian encouragement in the early 1990s and are treated by Russia as if they had been annexed: he had their leaders formally invited to a major Russian economic conference held close to the Georgian border on Sunday.

Sensing the danger in provoking Russian ire, the Georgians quickly backpedaled: The four arrested Russian officers were handed over to European diplomats, and they arrived in Moscow on Monday night. But instead of reciprocating with calming measures, the Kremlin appears to have seized on the opening offered by Georgia to press home a point.

Relations between Russia and Georgia grew strained even in the Soviet Union's last years when the then-Soviet Republic elected an ardent nationalist as president. The rift intensified during the breakup of the Soviet Union, when the Russian military helped Ossetian and Abkhaz separatists. And relations have deteriorated to a breaking point since the current government of Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in a popular uprising two years ago.

Georgia will be unlikely ever to tempt the breakaway regions back into the fold unless Tbilisi make that choice look more attractive to the Ossetians and Abkhaz than alignment with Russia. Saakashvili's heavy hints that he might force the issue has allowed Moscow to accuse the Georgian leadership of threatening aggression. And it has certainly helped President Vladimir Putin rally the Russian public behind a nationalist cause. A poll taken by the Moscow-based Echo Moskvy radio station late last month found that 40% of its typically liberal audience believe that Russia's national interests justify any hard line on Georgia. Such jingoism could work as smartly for Putin's as yet unnamed heir-designate as the Chechen war worked for Putin back in 1999 — that's if Putin feels sufficiently emboldened to risk reiterating Moscow's neighborhood supremacy by challenging what he sees as a U.S. proxy on his own turf.

Given the U.S. commitment to Georgia, the standoff raises a dilemma for the Bush Administration: Unless both Putin and Saakashvili are restrained, the spat that began with the arrest of four Russian officers could degenerate quickly into a real disaster.

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Putin to Georgia: Don't mess up with us
Wednesday Oct 4 23:35 AEST

AP - President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned Georgia against provoking Moscow any further, accusing Tbilisi's pro-Western leadership of resorting to "blackmail" during the recent standoff over the arrest of four Russian officers.

Russian lawmakers, meanwhile, looked set to pass a parliamentary motion strongly condemning the Georgian government, accusing it of "anti-Russian" behaviour and signaling "harsher measures" in case of further aggravation.

"I would not counsel anyone to talk to Russia in the language of provocations and blackmail," Putin told the heads of the parliamentary factions, adding that he was speaking specifically about Georgia.

Moscow slapped transport and postal sanctions on Georgia in response to Georgia's arrest last week of four Russian officers accused of espionage. Georgia released the officers on Monday, but the Kremlin has refused to back down despite Western calls for an end to the punitive measures.

In addition, police are targeting the large Georgian Diaspora in Moscow with raids of businesses and restaurants. The Russian parliament will also consider a bill later this week that would allow the government to bar Georgians living in Russia from sending money home - a step that would deal a huge blow to Georgia's struggling economy.

According to some estimates, about 1 million of Georgia's 4.4 million population work in Russia, and their families rely on the hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) in annual remittances.

Moscow's aim appears to be to punish Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili for his defiance of Russia through the detention of its officers on spying charges. The dispute more widely reflects Kremlin alarm at Tbilisi's goal of NATO membership and the growing US influence in its former Soviet backyard.

A Kremlin official, Modest Kolerov, said the sanctions - a suspension of air, road, maritime, rail and postal links - would not be lifted until Georgia ended its "hostile rhetoric" toward Russia, the Gazeta.ru news web site reported.

A close Putin ally, parliamentary speaker Boris Gryzlov, warned that more punitive measures could follow. "Not all sanctions have been imposed," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.

Piling on the pressure, authorities Tuesday closed two popular casinos run by Georgians in the Russian capital, saying they did not have authorisation for their casino tables and slot machines. They also raided a hotel and two restaurants run by Georgians, saying they could be closed for legal violations.

The Kommersant daily quoted police officials as saying that 40 Georgian restaurants and shops in downtown Moscow would be raided in the next few days. The Georgian ballet had to cancel a planned tour in Russia because it could not obtain visas.

Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, meanwhile, said Wednesday that the pullout of Russian troops in Georgia could be accelerated because of the tensions there.

He told reporters on a visit to the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, that Russia would "be withdrawing the Russian bases there according to the schedule, and maybe in an accelerated order. Because everybody understands the state of our soldiers and officers give the conditions that they are in there."

Russia has 3,000-4,000 troops at two military bases in Georgia, and pledged in a deal signed last year to withdraw its troops by the end of 2008.

Russia's chilly relations with Georgia have worsened steadily since Saakashvili came to power following the 2003 Rose Revolution, vowing to take the country out of Russia's orbit, reign in the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and join NATO in 2008.

Georgia accuses Russia of backing the separatists, which Russia denies.

Pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's party, meanwhile, sharply criticised Russia's blockade against Georgia, saying it confirmed the Kremlin's imperial ambitions toward ex-Soviet states.

news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=149692

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Pposting error

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When will we learn how to play chess?



SMALL CRISIS, BIG WAVES
by Michael Meyer
New York Post
October 9, 2006

October 9, 2006 -- THE crisis brewing in Georgia, the little nation on the Black Sea, just south of Russia, matters more than most Americans might think.
On Sept. 27, Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, ordered the arrest of four Russian military officers, claiming they were "spies" plotting a coup against him. Behind the scenes, Washington screamed and men were promptly let go - though not before Russia mobilized forces along its border, imposed an economic embargo and recalled its diplomats from the capital of Tblisi.
End of story, save for a fall-off in exports of delicious Georgian wine? Not quite. These events are linked to awkward developments elsewhere. U.S.-Russian relations, not good to begin with, could seriously suffer.
Start with Kosovo. Negotiations over the future of that minute breakaway republic in the former Yugoslavia are underway in Vienna. Legally, Serbia owns it. Morally, the Albanians living there - who survived a decade of ethnic cleansing verging on genocide - have a claim to independence. The United Nations is all but certain to grant it before the year is out.
Back to Georgia - or, rather, to two other little-known republics named Abkhazia and South Ossetia, deep in the Caucasus along Russia's frontier. Legally, they belong to Georgia. De facto, they're run by ethnic Russians who for years have fought wars of independence against Tblisi's rule.
Moscow hasn't been shy about helping, offering the people of these regions Russian citizenship and stationing troops to "keep the peace." And President Vladimir Putin has gone out of his way lately to issue stiff warnings to any and all who visit him: If the West recognizes Kosovo's independence, he'll recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia and perhaps, in time, even absorb them into Russia.
Georgia's Saakashvili sees all this as nothing but a pretext for a newly imperial Russian land-grab. "It will be war," he exclaimed at the Council on Foreign Relations during a recent New York visit. His U.N. representative even warns that Russia will use the excuse of fighting in Abkhazia or South Ossetia to invade the whole of Georgia.
In truth, the chances of that are pretty much nil - not so much because America has troops there, but because the ever-cautious Putin is unlikely to do anything so damaging to Russia's global image. Still, the prospect isn't pretty.
The fact is, says Anatol Lieven, a Russia expert at the New America Foundation, "America may be lurching toward something it managed to avoid during the whole Cold War: an armed confrontation between a U.S. client-state and Moscow."
This is something to take seriously. America has been encouraging Georgia to push for NATO membership. Sen. John McCain recently visited; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon heavies pass through regularly. A crisis in Georgia would certainly set back those plans, and possibly jeopardize this young democracy taking root in the former Soviet sphere.
In diplomacy, Putin's game is tough tit-for-tat geopolitics, where one good turn deserves another - and vice versa. One example: At this summer's G8 summit, Putin pushed hard to get Washington to drop its resistance to Russia joining the World Trade Organization - the emblem of Putin's coveted goal of fully joining the West. Turned down, Moscow is now threatening to bar U.S. oil majors from the giant Shtokman gas field in Siberia, among the biggest energy plays in history.
Earlier this year, Russia reacted to talk of Ukraine joining NATO by saying - publicly -that it was up to that country's government. Privately, the Kremlin was incensed: Push this, it told Bush administration officials, and Russia would drop out of critical negotiations to forestall Iran's efforts to gain a nuclear weapon - and start selling its most high-tech weaponry to Tehran, including interceptor missiles.
"Tit-for-tat" once worked to U.S. advantage. After 9/11, Putin was the first to call President Bush. The White House asked Putin's help in winning basing rights in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan - essential staging areas for Afghanistan - and the Russia president made it happen.
But he was promised that U.S. troops would remain only a year or two, says a senior German national security adviser. Five years later, America is still in the region - and Putin feels burned.
As he sees it, he has a list of slights to repay, from resented U.S. criticisms of human rights and democracy in Russia to U.S. meddling in Russia's sphere of interest. Riding high on oil wealth, Moscow is at long last in a position for pay-back.
This is no reason to go soft on Russia, especially on democratic rights. But it is important to understand Putin's view of the world and its interrelatedness. Whether or not the mini-crisis in Georgia turns bloody, it may spill over to other realms. Like Iran.




http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/20116

[Ryan Ruck]

Children Drawn Into Russia's Crackdown On Georgians

School children are the latest target of a Russian crackdown against ethnic Georgians in the wake of a spy scandal, Moscow officials said, as rights groups warned of "outrageous" discrimination.

Alexander Gavrilov, spokesman for the Moscow city education department, said that police had issued an order for schools to provide the authorities with lists of students with Georgian names.

"There is such an order in some schools. The education department is aware of this," Gavrilov said Friday, adding that his department strongly opposed the measure.

The measure follows the closing of Georgian-owned restaurants, casinos and other businesses in Moscow, a sweeping crackdown against illegal immigrants, and the severing of all air, sea and land links between Russia and Georgia.

Kremlin officials say they are punishing Georgia for the arrest and brief detention of four Russian army officers on spying charges at the end of last month.

However, human rights groups and political analysts describe the escalating pressure against Georgians of all types living in Russia as resembling a racist campaign.

"They claim these measures to be based on the law, but they are clearly being selective and the result is ethnic discrimination," said Galina Kozhevnikova from the non-governmental organisation Sova, which monitors xenophobic crime.

"It's outrageous. I can't say how strongly I feel about this. It's shameful and I can't understand why our leadership does not realise it's shameful."

The Kommersant daily quoted an unnamed senior police officer as saying that the listing of ethnic-Georgian school pupils would help track down parents residing in Russia illegally.

"It's easiest to do this through the children, who study in schools regardless of whether their parents are registered in Moscow or pay taxes," the officer was quoted as saying.

But Gavrilov, at the city education department, indicated there was strong opposition to the order. "Children studying in Moscow schools are the same, regardless of their ethnicity," he said.

The interior ministry would not confirm the report.

Russian officials have been unanimous and fierce in their reaction to Georgia's arrest of the four officers, alleged to have been members of the military intelligence unit GRU.

Analysts believe the crisis is rooted in Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's resolute attempts to break Russian influence in his impoverished ex-Soviet republic by applying to join NATO -- and Moscow's equal determination to prevent this.

Even before the spy scandal, Georgian-Russian relations were in a state of near constant tension, mostly over Georgia's claim that Russia supports separatist rebels in the two Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

However, the crackdown on the estimated one million Georgians living in Russia, many of them believed to be here illegally, introduces the politically explosive issue of race and immigration.

President Vladimir Putin himself signalled this new emphasis on Thursday when he gave a speech denouncing "rackets" and the "chaos" in Russia's big food markets, and urging tighter visa controls over "foreign citizens breaking our Russian law."

Georgians and other groups from the fertile agricultural regions of the Caucasus often dominate trading in Russia's markets.

Also on Thursday, the deputy head of the migration service, Mikhail Tyurkin, announced tougher immigration measures, saying that "Russia's regions do not need Georgian citizens."

"There is a policy of uniting people around the Kremlin in the face of a common enemy," said Vladimir Pribylovsky at the Panorama think tank.

"You could make that enemy the Jews, but that would cause problems in the West. The Chechens, or Russia's own Caucasians, are not convenient either, because there are too many of them and that might encourage separatism. So they found the Georgians."