‘Georgian spy’ held in Russia

Russian security forces say they have arrested a Georgian spy with links to North Caucasian militants. Tbilisi denies the claim, which comes amid high tensions and bomb blasts in breakaway South Ossetia.

Moscow officials said on May 16 that Russian citizen Ramzan Turkoshvili, a native of Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, was working as a go-between for Georgian intelligence services and illegal guerilla groups in Chechnya and other regions in the Northern Caucasus.

According to a source in the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Turkoshvili was also tasked with gathering information about Russian state officials for recruitment purposes, as well as negotiating with Russian traffic police to ensure the safe passage of militants across the Northern Caucasus.

The FSB also claimed Turkoshvili was connected to a terrorist leader now in hiding in the Pankisi area. Russian news agencies report that Turkoshvili confessed. There is no recent information on his location or status.

Georgian officials denied the charges. Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, called the news “disinformation.” “It’s not even serious to comment on the details of this,” Utiashvili told reporters.

Rebel Chechen groups also denied the report. Movladi Udugov, the head of a separatists’ analytical group, said the information was targeted for “Kremlin propaganda consumers,” according to separatist website Kavkaz-Center.

Announced as the top Georgian official for conflict issues held talks in Moscow, the accusations fed smoldering tensions around Georgia’s breakaway regions. [More]

Tbilisi Denies Militant Suspects Infiltrated Russia from Georgia

Georgia said Russia’s allegation that two militant suspects killed in Karachay-Cherkessia infiltrated from Georgia was a provocation.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement on September 5 that two militants have been killed in a clash within Russia’s north Caucasus republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, who have infiltrated into the republic from “a neighboring country.”

Karachay-Cherkessia borders with Georgia, in particular with breakaway Abkhazia, mainly with Tbilisi-controlled upper Kodori Gorge. Only a small section of Karachay-Cherkessia’s border lies with the Georgia’s high-mountainous region of Svaneti.

Russia says Islamists killed crossing from Georgia

Russia's FSB internal security service killed two armed men on Wednesday whom it described as Islamist extremists as they tried to cross over a mountainous border from Georgia.

Russia has in the past accused Georgia of not doing enough to prevent Chechen rebels hiding in its mountains, although the Georgian army has since swept through mountain valleys where rebels were believed to be hiding. [More]