TBILISI, Oct 2: Four Russian army officers arrested in Georgia for spying were allowed to fly home on Monday as Tbilisi tried to defuse the worst crisis in years between the ex-Soviet neighbours.

But Moscow ignored international appeals for a similar goodwill gesture. Russian news agencies quoted sources at the transport and communications ministries as saying air, rail, road and sea links to Georgia would be cut, as would postal services. A transport ministry spokeswoman refused to comment.

However, the daily Kommersant reported on Monday, quoting an unnamed Russian defence ministry source that diplomacy has run its course and Russia cannot rule out taking military action in its dispute with neighbouring Georgia.

“All diplomatic steps that are usually taken in such strained relations have been exhausted,” the report quoted the source as saying.

“The next action could be the breaking of diplomatic relations and a military operation. Nothing can be ruled out at present,” the source added.

After a compromise deal brokered by international mediators, the four Russian officers boarded a Russian Emergencies Ministry aircraft at Tbilisi’s airport and then took off bound for Moscow, said a Reuters witness at the airport.

Earlier, at a ceremony in front of the media, Georgian police officers removed handcuffs from the four and handed them over to a delegation from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

“The message to Russia is: ‘Enough is enough’,” Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told reporters at the ceremony, which was conducted mostly in English for the benefit of international media.

“We want to have good relations. We want to have dialogue. But we cannot be treated as a second-rate backyard of some kind of emerging empire.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, welcomed Tbilisi’s decision to release the Russian soldiers. “I hope normal relations can now be re-established between Russia and Georgia,” he said in a statement.

But the release did not appear to have appeased officials in Russia, Georgia’s former imperial master which has been alarmed by Tbilisi’s drive to join NATO and the EU.

Russia’s state railways operator said trains would stop running to Georgia from Tuesday and Russia’s head of air traffic control Alexander Neradko said “from 0000 on October 3 Moscow time air links between Russia and Georgia will be ceased”.

Severing transport links could cause severe hardship in Georgia, a small mountainous republic of five million people which depends heavily on Russia for trade, energy, power and remittances.

Saakashvili dismissed the Russian measures, telling reporters he would not accept Moscow’s bullying of his country.

“The rules of the game should change,” he said. “It’s no longer the Soviet empire and we are no longer a rebellious nation that is rebelling against its central government.

“We are an independent and free nation and should be respected as such.”

The handover did not mean Tbilisi was exonerating the Russian officers, he added. “I want to make it very ... clear. We have a very solid case of espionage, subversion, trying to destabilise my country.”

BUSH-PUTIN TALKS:US President George W. Bush called Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Monday to discuss the situation in Georgia, as well as Iran, Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Alexei Gromov as saying.