Georgian prisoners taken in cease-fire

POTI, Georgia | Russian soldiers took about 20 Georgians in military uniform prisoner at a key Black Sea port in western Georgia on Tuesday, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeered U.S. Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States.

The move came as a small column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles left the strategic city of Gori in the first sign of a Russian pullback of troops from Georgia after a cease-fire intended to end fighting that reignited Cold War tensions.

The two countries on Tuesday exchanged about 20 prisoners. However, Russian soldiers also seized Georgians in Poti - the country’s key oil port city - and commandeered four U.S. Humvees that had been used in U.S.-Georgian military exercises.

It was the latest example of Russia still demonstrating its military prowess, leaving Georgians to wonder if Russia planned an extended military occupation or was still inflicting punishment before adhering to a promised troop withdrawal.

At an emergency meeting in Brussels, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her 25 NATO counterparts demanded that Russia immediately withdraw its troops from Georgia, a U.S. ally that wants to join NATO.

“It is time for the Russian president to keep his word to withdraw Russian forces,” Miss Rice told reporters.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lashed back, telling a hastily gathered press conference that the alliance was supporting an aggressive Georgia.

NATO “is trying to make a victim of the aggressor, to absolve of guilt a criminal regime, to save a collapsed regime, and is taking a course to rearm the current leaders of Georgia,” Mr. Lavrov said.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council was holding emergency consultations on the conflict.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told French President Nicolas Sarkozy by phone Tuesday that Russian troops will withdraw from most of Georgia by Friday, the Kremlin said - some to Russia, others to South Ossetia and a surrounding “security zone” set in 1999.

In Poti, Russian forces blocked access to the city’s naval and commercial ports Tuesday morning and towed the missile boat Dioskuria, one of the Georgian navy’s most sophisticated vessels, out of sight of observers. A loud explosion was heard minutes later. Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shote Utiashvili said the Russian military blew up the Dioskuria.

Several hours later, Russian trucks and armored personnel carriers were seen leaving the port with about 20 blindfolded and handcuffed men.

Poti Mayor Vano Taginadze said the Russians seized 22 military and police troops because the Georgians refused to let Russian armored vehicles enter the port. The Georgians were taken to the nearby Senaki military base, now controlled by Russia, where Mr. Taginadze was told they would be released Wednesday.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said officials were looking into the reported theft of the Humvees. Georgian Deputy Defense Minister Batu Kutelia said Russian forces seized the vehicles.

Russian troops last week drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, where Georgia on Aug. 7 launched a heavy artillery barrage in the separatist Georgian province with close ties to Russia. Fighting also has flared in a second Russian-backed separatist region, Abkhazia.

Tensions also have flared between Ukraine and Russia amid fears that Moscow might next set its sights on Ukraine, another ex-Soviet republic whose government is seeking NATO membership.

The two countries sparred Tuesday over Russia’s use of a naval base in the port of Sevastopol, which it is renting from Ukraine.