TBILISI. Nov 8 (Interfax) - Some of the 13 people earlier detained in Georgia on suspicion of spying for Russia are Georgian Air Force pilots.
They are Vyacheslav Pluzhnikov, Gabriel Ustalishvili, Davidze Meskhidze, Gela Kakabadze, Zurab Diasamidze and Tariel Abashidze, the Georgian Interior Ministry said on Friday.
The pilots are accused of providing Russia's main intelligence department with classified information about combat aircraft crews, flight schedules, as well as personnel's combat readiness, resources and military exercises, the ministry said.
Four of the 13 people earlier detained in Georgia on suspicion of spying for Russia are Russian citizens, the ministry said earlier.
They are Armen Gevorkyan, general director of the Seibolt company's branch in Georgia, his deputy Ruben Shikoyan, businessman Pyotr Devrishadze and Yury Skrylnikov, whom the Georgian Interior Ministry accuses of being linked to the Russian main intelligence department, it said.
The deputy director of the Georgian Interior Ministry's counterintelligence department, Otar Orjonikidze, said at a press briefing on Friday that the detained people were accused of espionage and of being involved with the Russian main intelligence department.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was outraged over the arrest of Russian citizens in Georgia and condemned it as an anti-Russian provocation.
"We are deeply outraged over the detention of Russian citizens in Georgia. We are investigating the situation at the moment," a ministry source said.
"Obviously, it was done ahead of the Russia-NATO summit in Lisbon and the OSCE summit in Astana in order to draw as much attention as possible [to Georgia] and to harm Russia," he said.
"It is a provocation confirming another worsening of the Georgian leadership's anti-Russian psychosis," the source said.
More than 50 people accused of spying for Russia have been arrested in Georgia since the Rose Revolution in November 2003.
Prior to the aforementioned operation, four Russian officers were arrested on September 27, 2006, 29 people were arrested on October 6, 2006, seven were arrested on May 5, 2009 on suspicion of masterminding a mutiny and cooperating with the Russian Federal Security Service, and three former Russian servicemen were arrested on May 13, 2010.