Saturday, August 25, 2007

Abkhazia Confirms Georgian Report of Crashed Plane

Via IHT.com -

SUKHUMI, Georgia: A plane of uncertain origin went down over Abkhazia, a top official of the separatist region said Saturday, a day after Georgia said its forces fired on a plane believed to be Russian that had violated the country's airspace.

Georgia's claim Friday further escalated tensions with Russia, which had soared earlier in the month when Georgia said a Russian bomber dropped a missile on a Georgian village; the missile did not explode. In both cases, Russia denied that its planes had violated Georgian air space.

If Georgia did shoot down a Russian plane, it would be the most serious incident in years between the countries.

In the latest claim, Georgia said it fired on Wednesday at a plane over Upper Abkhazia, a remote and ruggedly mountainous area adjacent to separatist-controlled Abkhazia. Authorities said the plane was believed to have crashed.

On Saturday, the chief of staff of separatist Abkhazia's military, Anatoly Zaitsev, told reporters that a plane or its fragments definitely had crashed Wednesday and that he had seen the plane himself.

"The aircraft was going down, a volley of blueish smoke was coming after it and there were two large fragments flying behind its tail from inertia for a while. One of them is believed to have fallen in the lower part of the Kodori Gorge," he said. The gorge runs from Georgian territory into separatist-controlled territory.

He did not specify what kind of plane it was. But Sergei Shamba, the foreign minister of Abkhazia's internationally unrecognized government, said the plane "most likely" belonged to Georgia, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

A Russian air force spokesman, Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky, said on Russia's Channel 1 TV Saturday that Georgia's claim Friday was "the latest provocation aimed against us."

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