Georgian forces ring the base and accuse Russia of attempting to fund a coup. A Moscow official denies the accusation.

Tank battalion mutinies in Georgia
Georgian forces ring the base and accuse Russia of attempting to fund a coup. A Moscow official denies the accusation.
By Megan K. Stack
4:40 AM PDT, May 5, 2009
Reporting from Moscow -- A Georgian tank battalion mutinied on Tuesday, government officials said, describing the the rebellion as part of an abortive, nationwide coup funded by Russia in an effort to undermine the U.S.-backed president.

As forces ringed the rebel base to seal it off and tanks rumbled toward the mutiny from Tbilisi, the government announced that it had thwarted a widespread military rebellion. A former, Soviet-era special forces commander was arrested on charges of orchestrating the coup, an Interior Ministry official said, and at least one other alleged organizer was being sought.

Georgian officials immediately accused Russia of masterminding the uprising, and said it was timed to undermine controversial NATO military exercises set to take place in Georgia on Wednesday.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili called the uprising a "serious threat" but said it was isolated. He also said the mutineers had "connections with special forces in a specific country known to us."

"I am asking and demanding from our northern neighbor to refrain from provocations," Saakashvili said in a televised address.

The rebel tank battalion consists of about 500 men in Mukhrovoni military base, about 18 miles from the capital, Tbilisi.

"One cannot calmly look at the process of destroying the country calmly, at the ongoing [political] confrontation," the battalion commander, Mamuka Gorgishvili, said in a statement carried by local news agencies. "However, there will be no aggressive actions on behalf of our tank unit. We are in barracks and we are not going to leave them."

The base was quickly encircled and sealed off, the government said. Reporters were being kept away by police checkpoints, and Georgian television showed images of tanks rumbling toward the base. Defense officials said they were negotiating with the mutineers.

"They cannot articulate clearly what they want," Deputy Interior Minister Shota Utiashvili said. "They just released a statement saying they're unhappy with the political situation, and that's it."

Russian officials have bridled at the growing influence of the West in former Soviet states, and have complained bitterly about this week's military exercises. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week called them "an open provocation" and warned of "negative consequences" should NATO press ahead with the exercises.

But despite the public accusations and questionable timing, Utiashvili acknowledged in a telephone interview that there is no concrete evidence of Russian involvement in Tuesday's uprising.

"We don't have direct evidence for the moment," the deputy interior minister said. "The timing of this mutiny coincides with these exercises, so that's what we're looking at."

Saakashvili has faced extreme political pressure since last summer's disastrous war with Russia, which resulted in Georgia's two breakaway republics being recognized by Moscow as independent states.

His political foes accuse the U.S.-backed president of consolidating personal power at the expense of democracy and rushing headlong into an ill-advised confrontation with Moscow.

On Tuesday, some members of the opposition accused Saakashvili's government of fabricating the coup for propaganda purposes.

In Brussels, Moscow's envoy to NATO scoffed at the accusations of Russian involvement.

"We have slowly begun to get accustomed to mad accusations by Georgian political and military authorities that if there is hail or thunderstorms, this is all Moscow's work," Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax news agency. "Both the Georgian army and Georgian nation are undergoing complete destruction, and the reason is, again, Saakashvili's mad policies."