Georgia on Friday accused 13 people, including four Russians, of spying for Russia after a four-year investigation.
Georgia on Friday accused 13 people, including four
Russian citizens, of passing information to Russia's GRU military spy agency
during the brief August 2008 war between the two countries.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin
immediately denounced the Georgian claims as "a political farce." The
charges, rumors about which first started circulating a week ago, have struck
many as bizarre. But most analysts see at least some truth in the charges,
though they caution that the broader domestic and regional dynamics involved
must be factored in.
"Of course spies exist, but there is also a
propaganda side to this," says Alexander Iskanderyan, director of the
independent Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, Armenia. "Georgian authorities
constantly utilize Russia as an 'enemy image' and try to tar their domestic
political opponents with this brush. You have to take these stories with a
grain of salt."
Four-year investigation
In a press conference announcing the arrests Friday,
Georgian officials said the investigation into the alleged spy ring had been
going on "for years."
"Not only did they monitor secret military
information but they continued to do so during the war," said Interior
Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili. "They wanted to know how many weapons
we had, where we had them, and planted agents everywhere to seek information...
"We think it is one of the most serious spy rings we
have caught in this country," he added.
Georgia's deputy counterintelligence chief Otar
Orjonikidze told journalists at the press conference that the investigation
began in 2006, after Georgian authorities offered an amnesty to any citizen who
came forward and admitted working for the Russians.
He added that the spy ring included dozens of others who
have still not been detained, and that it had been infiltrated and betrayed by
a Georgian double agent who had won the trust of the GRU.
'An odd story' that has deeply angered Moscow
Six of the arrested Georgians are air force pilots whom
the ministry said were recruited by the GRU a decade ago when they were
stationed in the autonomous Georgian region of Adjaria which, under local
strongman Aslan Abashidze, was in rebellion against Tbilisi's rule until 2004.
Another was a naval radio operator who allegedly passed on secret
communications codes to Russian intelligence.
"It's an odd story, since the people who've been
arrested are either old, or former employees of the ex-leader of Adjaria,
Abashidze, who had bad relations with Georgian leaders," says Mamuka
Nebieridze, director of the independent Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in
Tbilisi. "We've had these spy scandals in the past, and they only bring a
predictable reaction from Russia."
Georgian authorities have also often accused political
opponents of President Mikhail Saakashvili of receiving funding and
instructions from Moscow.
Almost 60 people have been arrested in Georgia on
suspicion of spying for Russia over the past six years, including a 2006 case
involving four Russian military officers based in Georgia and 12 Georgian
citizens. The Russians were subsequently returned to Moscow.
Russia's independent Interfax agency quoted an anonymous
Russian foreign ministry official as saying that Moscow is "deeply
angered" by the arrests.
"Obviously, this was done ahead of the Russia-NATO
summit in Lisbon," where Russia and NATO will seek to repair their
troubled relationship, "in order to attract as much attention as possible
and to harm Russia," the official said.
But Ghia Nodia, an analyst with the independent Caucasian
Institute of Peace, Democracy and Development, says "these are real spies.
I don't think it's an artificial action. Internal and external factors of
irritation really do exist, even if relations between Georgia and Russia have
stabilized lately."
Documentary film on investigation set to air today
Rumors have been flying wildly since Reuters reported a
week ago that 20 Georgians had been arrested for forming an extensive spy ring
within the country's armed forces and government structures. At the time,
Georgian police refused to confirm or deny that arrests had taken place, and
little information about the scandal was allowed to leak into the public sphere
until today's press conference.
However, Georgia's pro-government Rustavi-2 TV network
announced Friday that it has a documentary film of the years-long investigation
set to air today, which raises questions about the relationship between
journalists and authorities.
"The film depicts how the Georgian
counterintelligence service managed to break the largest-ever espionage
network," in Georgia, the announcement from Rustavi-2 said.
Georgian TV stations have been accused in the past of
cooperating with the authorities to spread an anti-Moscow message. A notable
example was the airing of a fictitious TV "news documentary" earlier
this year that used real-time news reporting techniques to describe a Russian
invasion of Georgia, followed by the installation of a Moscow "puppet
government" headed by Georgian opposition leader Nino Burdzhanadze.
'Chronic anti-Russian spy mania'
Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement blasting
Saakashvili's government, saying the "regime suffers from chronic
anti-Russian spy mania.
"Over recent years the Georgian government has
repeatedly resorted to fabrication of such scandals, cynically hoping to
receive domestic or foreign dividends," it said. "After all, everyone
has long known the price for such propaganda tricks of Tbilisi."