Russia Defends Itself

"In trying to parry Georgian accusations of thuggish behavior connected with the shoot-down of an unmanned reconnaissance plane over Abkhazia, Russia is adhering to the maxim ‘the best defense is a good offense.’

Georgian leaders have distributed a video, said to be from the destroyed drone, showing what appears to be a MiG-29 firing an air-to-air missile. Russian officials have steadfastly denied that one of their military jets was involved in the April 20 incident. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. On April 23, the Russian ambassador to Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko, repeated Kremlin claims that Abkhaz defense forces were responsible for bringing down the reconnaissance plane. Georgian officials counter that Abkhaz forces do not possess MiG-29s.

Russian officials also charge that what they characterize as "spy plane" flights constitute a violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement covering the Abkhazia conflict. The flights additionally flout United Nations Security Council decisions relating to peacekeeping operations in the conflict zone, Russian diplomats assert.

Far from accepting blame, a wide variety of Russian officials, as well as state-controlled media, portray the incident as instigated by Tbilisi. "It is another provocative demarche that will lead to nothing but the further deterioration of an already tense situation," the official RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Leonid Slutsky, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Duma’s International Affairs Committee, as saying.

The UN Security Council was scheduled to hold a closed-door session on April 23, during which Russia planned to present evidence that would discredit the Georgian version of events. "I assure you that we have a lot to say at the session about the unconstructive, even provocative actions by the Georgian side," Vitaly Churkin, the Russia’s UN representative, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on April 23."

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav042308f.shtml


This is all politics. I feel that Russia did shoot down the Georgian aircraft but are just trying to cover it up. Although Russia doesn't recognize Abkhazia as a free state, I feel that they want to defend it just to make sure Georgia knows whose the more powerful one in the region.