Tbilisi accusing Moscow of escalating tensions and increasing troops

Georgian government officials have shown the footage to a BBC reporter, which is supposed to prove that Russia has been deploying heavy armaments in Abkhazia.Chief of Informational and Analytical Department of Georgia’s Interior Ministry, Shota Utiashvili, said that this video footage was filmed by a Georgian unmanned spy plane, BBC reported.

 

The Georgian government official stressed that the footage shows that Russian military in Abkhazia are not just peacekeepers, but rather combatant forces. Russia, in turn, has been systematically denying such allegations.

 

During his interview to BBC, Mr. Utiashvili said that Georgia intends to keep sending its drones to the territory of Abkhazia in order to collect intelligence data and evaluate any potential risks involved.

 

Abkhaz authorities claim that as many as seven Georgian drones have been shot down over the past several months. Georgia, however, insists that there was only one drone downed. In April Georgian government in Tbilisi accused Moscow of shooting down such an aircraft, but Russian authorities denied that the incident had ever occurred.

 

Georgian Interior Ministry official stated that the flights of unmanned spy planes will continue.

 

“We think that Georgia, — especially in the time when we have the confirmed reports about mass-scale deployment of Russian troops and the ultimatum given by the Russians and Abkhazians, — that we have the right to know what is going on there, in order to be ready,” Shota Utiashvili said.

 

Earlier on, in April, Russia moved several hundreds of commandos to Abkhazian territory, yet at the same time Russia was incessantly claiming: these are just “peacekeepers”.

 

Georgia’s pro-Western government believes that Russia is provoking separatist sentiments on these territories in order to maintain its influence in the North Caucasus and at the same time not to let Georgia join the NATO.

 

Kavkaz Center