Russia may strengthen blockade of Georgia

For the time being, Russia is not going to resume transport communications with Georgia, Sergey Lavrov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared. "So far, we are not," he told the journalists.

Besides, the head of foreign affairs of Russia added that Russia is "pretty much concerned of all-round militarization in Georgia pursued by the current Tbilisi leadership," the RIA "Novosti" informs. He mentioned that Georgia, in particular, is buying armaments in huge amounts. "They are buying arms by breaching the rules existing in the international arms market," he said. According to his words, the arms are mainly of Soviet and Russian made, the items earlier shipped to other countries, first of all, to the East and Central Europe.

"They spend money on that. The Georgia's budget is scanty. The money arrives through various channels, illegally from Russia, in particular, where this money is mostly of criminal origin. These channels will be also cut short," the minister said.

According to his words, many figures say that the situation has normalized after Russian officers had been released, and now everything will be as before. "We don't want it to be as before, since it was very bad before. And apart from military preparations, apart from obvious preparations to force seizure of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and there were attempts in summer of 2004, the permanent anti-Russian rhetoric at this background, insults at the very top level, up to personal abuse that Georgia is surrounded by enemies, cannot remain without our attention," Mr. Lavrov said.

Along with that, according to Lavrov, Moscow sees no necessity to invite any mediators for normalizing Russian-Georgian relations. "Frankly speaking I see no need of that," Lavrov said in response to journalists' question.

We remind you that Russia has suspended, as of today's midnight, the air, railway, motor and postal communications with Georgia. The economic sanctions are a development of the spy scandal burst out in Georgia on September 27.

The correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" informed earlier that the Georgia authorities announced detainment in Tbilisi of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Savva and Lieutenant Colonel Dmitri Kazantsev; in Batumi they detained Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Zavgorodniy and Major Alexander Baranov. Later in Georgia two more Russian servicemen were detained - Amir Aslanyan and Ruslan Skrylnikov. They are all accused by Georgia of running reconnaissance activities in the territory of the country. The Russian party appraised the actions of Georgian power structures as provocative and requested an immediate release of Russian soldiers. On September 28, Russia recalled its ambassador from Georgia. On October 2, Georgia handed the detainees to OSCE representatives, and they were sent to Russia.