Hints at Russian involvement in Georgia missile

Hints at Russian involvement in Georgia missile

It referred instead only to an "unidentified" aircraft that flew into Georgia over a ridge of the Caucasus Mountains on Aug. 6. Russian officials deny any role in the matter, and have suggested instead that Georgia staged the episode, a theory dismissed by the experts.

The unidentified aircraft flew from Russian airspace "into Georgian airspace and back again into Russian airspace three times," according to the report, intended for distribution to Western governments, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations. "Radar information of the last pass into Georgian airspace [around 14:30] indicates that an object separated from the unidentified aircraft," and fell to the ground.

The missile plowed into the ground near the village of Tsitelubani, about 30 miles from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and broke apart but did not explode. No one was injured.

Georgia has asked the United Nations Security Council to investigate what it is calling a military attack on its territory, though the purpose of launching the missile into the field remained unclear.

The investigators said they were "unable to identify the aircraft type or origin" but ruled out Georgia's fleet of Sukhoi airplanes, because none are "equipped with or able to launch Kh-58 missiles."

The State Department released a brief statement on Thursday embracing the report's findings, saying, "We believe the report accurately summarizes the available evidence."

The discovery of the missile points to what would be the second firing of a Russian-made missile in Georgia this year. In March, a Russian-made, helicopter-launched missile exploded outside a Georgian government building in the Kodori Gorge, the only portion of the separatist region of Abkhazia that is under Georgian control.

Georgian officials said Thursday that the report vindicated their position. "The report shows that a military attack took place against a sovereign state," Shota Utiashvili, head of the department of analysis in the Georgian Interior Ministry, said in a telephone interview. "The only conclusion one can make is that the planes were Russians. Anything else is just a wild theory."

Military investigators from Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and the United States formed the ad hoc panel of eight inspectors in response to Georgia's invitation to international experts to examine the evidence. They worked in Georgia from August 12 to August 14.