Russia expels envoys as Nato war games begin

[steven johnson]

Source: The Times

May 7, 2009
Russia expels envoys as Nato war games begin
Tony Halpin in Moscow
Relations between Russia and Nato took a turn for the worse yesterday as the military alliance began war games in Georgia.
Russia ordered two Nato diplomats to leave the country in response to the expulsion of two of its envoys at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels over a spying scandal.
The diplomatic retaliation appeared timed to coincide with the start of Nato’s military exercises in Georgia, a day after President Saakashvili put down a mutiny by a tank battalion of 500 troops at a base outside the capital, Tbilisi.
The Interior Ministry in Tbilisi announced that a former top diplomat at Georgia’s mission to Nato had been arrested as a Russian spy. It accused Vakhtang Maisaia, now an academic, of selling military intelligence during Georgia’s war with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia last August.



Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6236751.ece