Georgia Says Jets From Russia Mount Missile Attack

The missile landed without exploding in a vegetable field near the village of Tsitelubani, about 65 km west of the capital Tbilisi.

Georgia said on Tuesday that jets flown from Russia fired a missile on its territory, narrowly missing hitting a village, but Russia's military denied any involvement.

The missile landed without exploding in a vegetable field near the village of Tsitelubani, about 65 km (40 miles) west of the capital, Tbilisi, Georgian officials said.

Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said it was an "act of aggression."

Russia has a long history of tense relations with its smaller neighbour, but Russia's air force said its aircraft had flown no sorties over the area.

In Tsitelubani, an unexploded missile could be seen embedded in a crater around 5 metres (16 ft) deep in a field of corn and potatoes fringed with fruit trees.

A small farmhouse stood about 35 metres (114 ft 10 in) from the crater.

"It happened yesterday at 1930 local time. Two Su-24 jets flew here. Our radars show that these jets flew from Russia and then flew back in the same direction that they had come from," Merabishvili told Reuters.

"I assess this fact as an act of aggression carried out by planes flown from the territory of another state," he said.

SU-24s were introduced into the Soviet Union's air force in the 1970s. They were designed as all-weather attack aircraft.

Bomb disposal experts were working at the scene, which police had cordoned off. A few dozen of Tsitelubani's residents watched on the sidelines.

"I was sitting in my garden resting a bandaged leg when I saw a plane in the sky," Ilia Psuturi said. "I then saw smoke rising from the ground up to the sky and only then did I hear the explosion. The plane then turned around."

Shota Utiashvili, the head of the Georgian interior ministry's public relations department, earlier told Reuters that the Russian jets had dropped a 700 kilo (1,543 lb) bomb.

"Fortunately it didn't explode. If it had exploded it would have been a disaster," he added. He said nobody was hurt.

TENSE RELATIONS

Russia's airforce denied that it had bombed Georgia, and said it had not violated its airspace.

"Russia's airforce neither on Monday nor Tuesday flew flights over Georgia," Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, aide to the commander of Russia's airforce, told Reuters.

"Russia has not violated the borders of sovereign Georgia."

The village of Tsitelubani is near the city of Gori, and a few kilometres to the south of Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region, a long-standing cause of friction between Russia and Tbilisi.

Russia provides moral and financial support for Georgia's rebel Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions. It has accused Tbilisi of pursuing anti-Russian policies.

Georgia's previous administration, under ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze, accused Russia in 2002 of sending fighter jets on sorties over its territory, but Moscow denied any involvement.

At that time, Tbilisi alleged that Russian jets had dropped ordnance on uninhabited areas of the remote Pankisi Gorge in north-east Georgia, near the border with Russia.

Relations between Russia and Georgia deteriorated sharply again last year when Tbilisi deported four Russian army officers, accusing them of spying.

Moscow responded by withdrawing its ambassador from Tbilisi and cutting air, sea and postal links with Georgia. Russia also deported several thousand Georgians, saying they were illegal immigrants.

Tension is still high but there have been tentative signs this year that the crisis was easing. Moscow's ambassador has returned to Tbilisi and the two sides have been in talks -- so far unsuccessful -- to restore air links.