Putin Accuses Georgia of Blackmail

Passengers stand with their luggage at the airport in Tbilisi, Georgia, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006. Russia suspended all transport and postal links with Georgia on Tuesday until further notice, in a sharp escalation of the dispute between Moscow and its small southern neighbor. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov) (Shakh Aivazov - AP)

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday accused Georgia of blackmail and lawmakers threatened more sanctions as Moscow police went after businesses allegedly tied to Georgian organized crime and cracked down on illegal migrants from the Caucasus Mountains nation.

The Kremlin's fury over last week's arrest of four Russian officers in Georgia, which sparked Moscow's suspension of air, sea, road, rail and postal links Tuesday, showed no sign of ebbing despite their release.

The arrests appear to have been the last straw for the Russian leadership, which is clearly alarmed over Tbilisi's goal of NATO membership and the growing U.S. influence in its former Soviet backyard.

Summoning parliamentary faction leaders to the Kremlin, Putin thanked them for their show of unity on Moscow's tough approach before delivering his verdict.

"I would not counsel anyone to talk to Russia in the language of provocations and blackmail," he told the four legislators _ Boris Gryzlov, the head of the dominant pro-Kremlin United Russia party, and the heads of the State Duma's three nationalist parties.

The lawmakers then returned to the legislature to lead passage of a statement on the "anti-Russian and antidemocratic policy of the Georgian authorities," which parroted previous Kremlin statements and signaled "harsher measures" in case of further aggravation.

"Not all sanctions have been imposed," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Gryzlov as saying.

Possible next steps include sharply restricting Russian energy shipments come winter and prohibiting money transfers from Russia and Georgia.

The latter could deal a huge blow to Georgia's struggling economy. According to some estimates, over one-fifth of Georgia's 4.4 million population work in Russia, and their families rely on the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual remittances.

Police are already targeting the large Georgian diaspora in Moscow with raids of businesses and restaurants. On Tuesday and Wednesday, masked riot police poured into two popular casinos run by Georgians in the Russian capital, saying they had no authorization for their casino tables and slot machines and claiming they were tied to Georgian organized crime. They also raided a hotel and two restaurants run by Georgians, saying they could be closed for legal violations.

"They should have gone after the bandits a long time ago," said Marina, a hostess in a Georgian restaurant in central Moscow who declined to give her last name for fear of attracting police attention. "But they shouldn't have waited until it was politically convenient to do so."

Police were also stepping up their searches for illegal migrants from Georgia. At Moscow's Dorogomilovsky market, police checked workers' documents and arrested three Georgian women who had sold cheese, according to vendors. The police had to let other Georgians remain because they had documents proving they were officially recognized refugees from the Georgian separatist region of Abkhazia.