A Georgian court ruled on Friday that two of four Russian servicemen, detained on spying charges, will be held under arrest for at least two months despite Moscow's demand they be freed.

The court was to decide later on Friday the fate of two other Russian officers, whose detention sparked a new crisis in uneasy relations between pro-Western Georgia and its old master Russia.

The court also ordered three Georgian nationals, who were detained on similar charges, to be held for two months.

Russia's defence minister said the arrests were aimed at pushing its troops from Georgia so the government could seize control of pro-Russian breakaway provinces by force, and he accused newer NATO members of illegally supplying Georgia with Soviet-made weapons.

Already tense relations between the ex-Soviet nations have been exacerbated by the arrests. On Thursday, Russia recalled its ambassador and complained to the United Nations. And Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov has denounced Georgia as a "bandit" state.

Two Russian planes, meanwhile, evacuated 84 diplomats and their relatives from Georgia, officials said.

The espionage charges were officially filed against the Russian officers, who were detained on Wednesday, said Shota Khizanishvili, spokesman for Georgia's interior minister. A fifth officer, who served as a contract soldier, was released on Friday, he said.

Bilateral ties long have been strained over Georgia's bid to join NATO and Moscow's close links to Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Abkhazia.

Ivanov, meeting with NATO members in Slovenia, said Georgia's actions were "to push Russian peacekeepers out by any means possible ... and then to submit an application to join NATO."

"It is absolutely clear to us that Georgia has chosen the military path, the forceful path, for resolving the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia," he said.

Georgian police still surrounded the Russian military headquarters in Tbilisi on Friday, hoping to detain another Russian officer accused of spying. Russian Ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko said Moscow would not surrender the officer.

In Moscow, police blocked off the streets around the Georgian Embassy. Police allowed a group of some 20 activists to stage a brief protest against Georgia's president outside security cordons before detaining them for holding an unsanctioned rally.

Separately, an official in South Ossetia claimed that masked Georgian military or security officers shot out the tires of a car carrying four Russian peacekeepers, a woman and a child on Thursday night, then ordered the men out and beat them.

The peacekeepers sustained a fractured skull, according to the internationally unrecognized South Ossetian government, and Ivanov said there was proof they were "brutally beaten."
 
Georgian officials denied the allegations, saying police stopped a car with Russian peacekeepers, checked their documents and released them.

Russia's Foreign Ministry advised its citizens to refrain from traveling to Georgia, citing security concerns, and its embassy in Tbilisi stopped issuing visas to Georgian citizens.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili denounced the moves as hysteria.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called for "moderation and de-escalation, and that goes for both parties."
 
A US State Department official said both sides had to work together to solve the situation.

(China Daily September 30, 2006)