TBILISI, Georgia, March 19 (UPI) -- The fate of the four Russian peacekeepers abducted by ethnic Georgian guerrillas in Georgia's separatist province of Abkhazia was still not clear late Tuesday as talks between the Russian military officials and guerrillas seemed stalled, Russia's NTV television network reported.
A captain, two lieutenants and a private, all serving in Russia's peacekeeping contingent in Abkhazia, were abducted Monday afternoon during a routine inspection of the area between the villages of Pechori and Kvishoni, located 75 miles and 80 miles respectively to the southeast of the provincial capital, Sukhumi.
The command of the Russian peacekeeping unit launched an all-out search to track down the missing staff after they failed to report at Kvishoni by 5 p.m., Russia's Defense Ministry said.
The witnesses among local residents at Kvishoni told investigators they saw the Russian troops "being driven away in a car by armed people."
On Tuesday, the members of the so-called "Forest Brothers" guerrillas informed the Russian peacekeeping command that the four would be held hostage as long as their two fellow-guerrillas, arrested by the peacekeepers last week, remained in captivity in Abkhazia.
The rebels, Mikhail Gogilava and Gocha Ordzhonia, were captured by a Russian patrol in Abkhazia's Galsky region and handed over to Abkhaz security authorities.
The captured rebels' fellow-fighters labeled Monday's kidnapping as an act of retaliation.
Later in the day Tuesday, Abkhaz Security Service chief Zurab Agumava told reporters that Gogilava and Ordzhonia had been released in order to exchange them for the Russian hostages.
According to Agumava, the two were sent to Galsky region where an exchange was expected to take place.
Russian military officials, however, denied that a deal on the exchange had been reached, but added that they hoped for a positive outcome.
Moscow's independent Ekho Moskvy radio reported that the peacekeepers had been driven off to the area near the Georgian town of Zugdidi, a stronghold of Georgian nationalists.
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze commented on the incident in Brussels where he had arrived for talks with NATO and European Union officials.
"According to the information I have, the abduction of the four Russian peacekeepers is connected with the fact that these troops earlier took part in abducting two young Georgians," Shevardnadze told reporters Tuesday after meeting Romano Prodi in the Belgian capital.
The Georgian president was apparently referring to the capture of Gogilava and Ordzhonia.
The members of the "Forest Brothers" units are ethnic Georgians struggling for reunification of the self-styled Abkhaz state with Georgia.
The province broke away from Tbilisi after two years of bloody fighting that ended in 1993 as Abkhaz forces uprooted around 300,000 Georgians who then sought refuge in Georgia proper.
Since then, a shaky cease-fire was maintained with the help of Russian peacekeepers deployed to divide the warring factions and ensure security.
However, the situation has remained tense ever since, with Georgian rebels making frequent incursions into Abkhazia.
Last year, occasional skirmishes erupted into a full-scale armed conflict as Georgians invaded Abkhazia's Kodor Gorge, provoking a military response by Abkhaz forces.
Recent news reports heralding the arrival of U.S. military advisers in Georgia alerted authorities in the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, who said the move would threaten the breakaway province's security.
While Tbilisi maintains that U.S. experts will train Georgian troops to fight terrorists in the troubled Pankisi Gorge, located near the Georgian-Russian border, Sukhumi fears that the training may be aimed at helping Georgians stage an assault on Abkhazia and recapture the province.
Tbilisi denies the allegations, maintaining that its troops will be trained with the sole purpose of stamping out terrorists from the Pankisi Gorge, which Russia maintains is a safe haven for Chechen rebels.
