Tbilisi, Georgia ? A Georgian court on Friday ordered four Russian military intelligence officers to be held for two months on espionage charges in a pretrial detention center, a decision that could prolong and deepen the heated dispute about alleged spying here.

“Russia cannot comprehend this court ruling,” Russian Vice Consul Viktor Kortenov said after the court hearing, which was closed to the media. “It is unclear why a Russian lawyer was not admitted to the proceedings.”

Russia’s ambassador to Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko, left the country Friday after being recalled by his government to protest the arrest of the Russian officers. He departed with more than 80 diplomats and their families, who were flown home by two Russian Emergency Ministry planes. Russia advised its citizens not to travel to Georgia, citing safety reasons.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who met for talks with his counterparts from the NATO alliance Friday in Slovenia, complained bitterly about Georgia’s actions. Ivanov charged that Georgia was provoking a conflict to try to oust Russian forces from two breakaway parts of Georgia that pledge loyalty to Moscow.

Russia describes its forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as peacekeepers, but the Georgians assert that they are propping up illegitimate separatist governments that obtained de facto independence after defeating Georgian forces in the early 1990s.

A police officer detains a nationalist protester outside the Georgian Embassy in Moscow. Police allowed a group of some 20 activists of the ultranationalist Liberal-Democratic Party to stage a brief anti-Saakashvili protest Friday outside security cordons before detaining them for holding an unsanctioned rally.

“It is absolutely clear to us that Georgia has chosen the military route for settling the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Ivanov said after the NATO meeting. “All the rest follows from that.”

Georgia, he said, is making “appeals to the international community that Russia is to blame for everything, including the cold weather that hit Georgia last winter.”

In Moscow, police cordoned off the Georgian Embassy and arrested a small group of nationalists who had a brief protest outside the building. In Tbilisi, Georgian police continued to surround a Russian military headquarters where they say a fifth Russian officer facing spying charges is hiding.

At Friday’s court session, 10 Georgian citizens alleged to have been working with the Russians were accused of high treason and ordered into pretrial detention. Georgian officials say the Russian officers were gathering classified information on Georgia’s cooperation with NATO.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is determined to take Georgia, a former Soviet republic, into the Western military alliance, an ambition that infuriates Moscow.