Georgia's government has called Tuesday's mutiny at a military base near Tbilisi part of a coup attempt orchestrated by Russia, but opponents of beleaguered President Mikheil Saakashvili accuse him of using the incident to crack down on mounting domestic opposition. Soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers raced to the base in Mukhrovani, 20 miles from the capital, to confront mutinous soldiers, around 500 of whom were arrested after the standoff ended peacefully.
The military uprising seemed to be "coordinated with Russia," and aimed at causing "military riots at different places all over Georgia to make sure at the minimum that the NATO training [exercise due to begin shortly] in Georgia would not happen and at the maximum that there would be a full-scale military riot in the country," Shota Utiashvili, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said Tuesday. Russia denied the charges, with Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin calling them "delusional," and alleging that "the Georgian leadership is trying to blame their internal political problems on Russia."
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