Tbilisi, Georgia – Georgia’s president accused Russia Tuesday of trying to sow panic and influence internal politics in its small southern neighbor after a 1-ton missile dropped by a bomber landed near a house. Russia denied its aircraft had fired the missile, which did not explode.
Georgia said two Russian Su-24 jets entered Georgia’s airspace about 35 miles northwest of the capital late Monday, and fired a missile that landed 25 yards from a house on the edge of Shavshvebi village.
“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,” President Mikhail Saakashvili said at the site.
Col. Alexander Drobyshev sky, a spokesman for Russia’s air force, denied the accusations.
“Russian aircraft haven’t conducted any flights over that area and haven’t violated Georgia’s airspace,” he said.
Georgia has long accused Russia of trying to destabilize the ex-Soviet republic 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.
The Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador to hand him Tbilisi’s formal protest.
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 that the plane came from Georgia.
Television video of the crater caused by the missile indicated that it had fallen straight down, rather than entering the ground at an angle, which it would do if it had been fired. Experts were shown exploding the missile.
Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said in televised comments that Georgian radars spotted the Russian aircraft that dropped the missile, while Salome Zurabishvili, a former foreign minister who now heads an opposition party, suggested that the missile had been dropped by a Georgian aircraft in an incident staged by Merabishvili.
