Georgia accuses Russia of dropping missile

Georgia claims to have proof that Russian jets violated its airspace and released a missile that landed near a house, while Russia denies the allegation.

Georgia’s Foreign Ministry issued a formal protest, calling the intrusion and firing of the missile “undisguised aggression and a gross violation of sovereignty of the country”.

“This was a provocation aimed only at one thing, at disrupting the peace in Georgia, which would cause panic in society and ultimately change the political course of the country,” Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili said yesterday at the site.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry said radar records compatible with Nato standards showed a Russian Su-24 jet had flown from Russia into Georgia and launched a missile, which did not explode.

Investigators identified the weapon as the Russian-made Raduga Kh-58 missile designed to hit radars, the ministry said. The missile, code-named by Nato as AS-11, carried a large TNT warhead, it said.

Russia’s air force has flatly denied that its planes had crossed into Georgia’s airspace.

Georgia has long accused Russia of trying to destabilise the country and of backing separatists in its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Saakashvili has pledged to bring back under central government control.

The Gori region, where the missile was dropped, is next to South Ossetia.

Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers patrolling South Ossetia, said an unidentified aircraft dropped the missile after flying over South Ossetia and coming under fire from the ground. Kulakhmetov suggested the plane came from Georgia.

Boris Chochiyev, a deputy prime minister in South Ossetia’s separatist government, accused Georgia of dropping the missile.